Mary Sullivan, Bangor’s first female mayor and a former state representative, died on March 8 at 93 in her home in Waltham, Massachusetts, according to her family.
Sullivan served two terms on the Bangor City Council from 1985 to 1991 and became council chair, a position that comes with the honorary title of mayor, in 1988, according to the Bangor Daily News archives. She was elected to the state legislature in 1992.
Friends and colleagues remembered Sullivan’s warmth, intelligence and dedication to the Bangor community.
“It almost feels like the end of an era here in Bangor,” State Treasurer Joe Perry, a former Bangor city councilor and state legislator, said of Sullivan’s death. He said her death marked the end of “a time when I think there was more decency in public discourse, and she was good and decent to the highest order. It just feels like what she brought those years ago is what we’re longing for today.”
Sullivan was born in Allston, Massachusetts. She went to Regis College and got a master’s degree in economics at Boston College. At the time, she was the only woman in the school’s economics department, according to the BDN archives.
It was there that she met her husband, Charles Sullivan, who was the department’s graduate assistant at the time. The pair married in 1956 and had six children.
After graduate school, Sullivan worked as a researcher at Harvard and taught at Bentley College before the family moved to Bangor so her husband could take a job as academic dean at Husson, where Mary also ended up working as the registrar.
Sullivan later worked as a math teacher at John Bapst High School, where she had Perry as a student. Sullivan was a wonderful teacher and loved by her classes, he said.
When Perry considered running for office, Sullivan was one of the first people he called.
“When I decided to get into politics, she was the one person I knew and trusted for guidance and I think her encouragement went a long way toward me making the decision to go for it,” he said. “She had a moral compass that always pointed in the right direction.”
Several former students went to Sullivan’s wake earlier this week in Massachusetts, according to former Waldo County Superior Court Justice Robert E. Murray, who said he was best friends with Sullivan’s oldest son and considered her a second mother.
“She would affirm anyone she came in contact with and was very uplifting in terms of her positive nature and always had a smile,” Murray said.
The Sullivans became an iconic couple in the local political scene. Both Mary and Charlie served on the City Council and they became involved at St. Mary’s Catholic Church. News reports about the pair noted that Mary converted her husband, an independent, into “a thoroughbred Democrat.”
Sullivan told the BDN in 1994 that she decided to run for council when Charlie was on Bangor’s school board. She came home one day from watching a City Council meeting, ranting about the decisions the councilors had made, and he said, “why don’t you do something about it?”
“Like what?” she asked, and he replied, “Like running for council.”
“They just had a lot of fun doing what they did for Bangor,” daughter Mari Mullen said.
Sullivan won a council seat in 1985, on her first try. She first threw her hat in the ring to run for council chair in 1987 but lost to Councilor Marshall Frankel. She hugged and congratulated him right away after the meeting, according to BDN reports.
She tried again the following year and won the chair position, becoming the first woman to hold the role.
“I think it’s quite nice to be a part of history at some time or other,” she told the BDN in 1987 about her candidacy for the mayorship.
After two terms on the council, Sullivan was elected as a state house representative in 1992. Friends say she brought a strong sense of morality and a desire to represent the voiceless to her work.
“In terms of her political record, she was always fighting for the little guy, the small business person, the worker, the teacher. It’s very sad to see someone of her stature pass on. But I think she had a wonderful life,” said state Sen. Joe Baldacci. Sullivan was a friend of his family and worked with him as a supporter of his brothers’ political campaigns, Baldacci said.
“She always had a lot of energy and she was a determined woman in terms of trying to get stuff done on the city council as well as in the state legislature,” he added.
Charlie was elected to the council in the same year that Mary joined the ranks of the state legislature. He was selected as chair in 1994, making the duo at the time the only husband and wife team to have both served as mayor.
Charlie died in 1997, during his second term on the council, due to complications from liver disease.
In an obituary for Charlie published in the BDN, former councilor Pat Blanchette recalled that over the years when Mary served in the legislature and often stayed in Augusta until late at night, her husband ended every council meeting saying, “Goodnight Mary, wherever you are.”
Mary moved to Massachusetts after her husband’s death but continued to visit Bangor. She celebrated her 85th birthday at John Bapst in 2017, where she was presented with a key to the city.
Those who knew Mary say her poise and care for the community will be sorely missed in Bangor.
“She was a special person,” Baldacci said. “Really just a warm heart, a smart mind, somebody who cared about so many people.”
Sullivan is survived by her children and their respective spouses, Charles and Cherie Sullivan, Ethel and Dexter Williams, Mari and Jim Mullen, Kathleen Sullivan, and Ursula and Brian DellaPorta, as well as her grandchildren, Emily Williams Zango and spouse Sarah, Franki Mullen, James Mullen, Derek Williams and Olivia DellaPorta, according to the obituary written by her family. She was predeceased by her husband as well as her son Mark Sullivan and granddaughter Madonna Pearl Mullen.
Her funeral was held on Tuesday at Sacred Heart Church in Waltham, Massachusetts.