KENT, Conn. – Maureen Brady had a zest for life.
Family and friends describe her as well-rounded individual who was fearless, loving, a little sassy, and deeply spiritual.
Brady died Feb. 23 at her home in Kent. She had been ill for the past year and a half, family said.
“She was of an era of that period in time where small communities looked out for one another….She was one of those pillars,” said resident Chris Garrity of Brady’s service to town government and the community.
“Maureen and everyone else (at that time) was looking for the betterment of the town, and had a focus on running it, and running it well,” said Garrity, who was Brady’s neighbor for 20 years.
“She made sure the older generation was taken care of, and the younger generational had educational and recreational opportunities,” he said. Brady and others “were looked at as the glue of the town.”
The community gathered Friday, Feb 28, at for a Mass of Christian Burial at Sacred Heart Church, a part of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha Parish, in town to honor the woman who served as the town’s first woman first selectman from 1986-92.
“She broke barriers” in town through her extensive career in town government,” said Brady’s eldest daughter, Kathleen Lindenmayer, addressing the estimated 160 individuals who filled the church.
“She was also “a perfect example of what love looked like,” she said. “She could be stern and strict, but she loved greatly,” she said. “She gave and she gave, and she gave, rarely ever thinking of herself but always the other person.”
Brady selflessly contributed years of public service to town. She also served several churches in various capacities, first at Holy Trinity Church in Sherman and later at St. Bernard-St. Bridget Church in Sharon and Cornwall Bridge, and Sacred Heart as secretary for nearly 20 years.
Father Francis Fador of St. Bridget recalled his need for a secretary to help him organize the parish upon his arrival in 2002. When Brady was introduced to the mammoth tasks, she was unfazed and immediately began rebuilding the infrastructure with Fador.
“We talked about what parish might need, how we could pull the parish together and make it a spiritual home for people who had left or maybe had drifted away,” he related. “Like a new broom that sweeps clean, she began to organize the parish, organize the books, created a census.”
Fador acknowledged Brady’s knack not only for organization, but for embodying her faith.
“She was also a spiritual guide for me, a person I could go to, to reflect things off of her,” he said.
He described her as a listener and encourager, and she looked out for him.
“She was always so respectful of my position [that] she would offer a suggestion and then say, “but it’s your choice,” he related, a comment that elicited laughter from those gathered at the Mass.
Lindenmayer admitted her mother was a “sassy tease” at times. “She somehow convinced my sister she was eternally 24 years old and that she was the only perfect being besides Jesus and his mother, of course.”
Again, friends and family chuckled.
“She was a paradox,” Lindenmayer said. “She was both a formidable force, but she was also the gentlest and most humble of souls. She demanded honesty from us and always pushed us to do our absolute best.”
Longtime friend Ruth Epstein met Brady while working together at town hall. Through their jobs, they grew close and spent time with each other’s families.
“It’s been a great loss,” Epstein said.
Brady’s career in town government began while serving for 14 years as administrative assistant to the first selectman and clerk to the Board of Selectman. Then, in 1986, she was elected the first woman first selectman in town.
After serving in the town’s top role, she was later elected to the Board of Finance and served as an assistant Registrar of Voters and secretary to the Republican Town Committee.
“She had a big hand in the creation of the Sewer Commission, keeping Union Carbide out of Kent….she created Kent’s first emergency plan, the Kent Transfer Station,” Lindenmayer said of some of her mom’s accomplishments in the community.
The center of the town’s government happens in Kent Town Hall, which Brady personally had a hand in.
“She created town hall,” Lindenmayer said. “The one that you see here today, that was Mom.”
Epstein described her friend of 50-plus years as “incredibly committed to this town.”
“She rose to the top” when she moved here, Epstein said of Brady, citing the list of activities in which she became involved.
Garrity related how Brady was “genuine and welcoming” when he moved into the same neighborhood. “She was always helpful and generous….in a pinch, she’d be there.”
He recalled how Brady “inspired” his family to decorate for Halloween, a holiday she not only decorated her house for, but donned a costume.
“She was a wonderful neighbor,” he said.
