WESTBROOK – Marjorie “Marj” Stewart, 86, of Yarmouth, died Jan. 16 at Springbrook Nursing Home after a long period of declining health.  

On May 20, 1925, she was born in Needham, Mass., a daughter of Ruth (Barnard) and Harold M. Fisher.

After she graduated from Fitchburg High School, she attended Pierce Secretarial School in Boston, Mass.  

She worked at Boston area companies and raised and showed Irish Setters until she married Walter Ross Stewart on June 16, 1956, and moved to Yarmouth, where they had two children together.

After settling in Yarmouth she continued her passion for dogs, and started the first 4-H Dog Club in Maine in the early 1960s.

She worked with the Saccarapa Dog Obedience Club in Westbrook and helped with training classes.  

Having taken in an abused Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, she helped establish the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club and write their breed standard.

A longtime member of the board of directors of the Animal Refuge League, she also served as its executive director and oversaw a major renovation of the Westbrook facility.

Her other hobbies include horseback riding and British history.

Surviving are her son, David R. Stewart and his wife Belinda (Pulk), and their two children, Chelsea Stewart and Ian Stewart; and her daughter, Ruth Ann Stewart, and her two children, Emma Stewart and Nicole Stewart; and her nephew Harold D. Savage.

There will be no funeral services.  

Please visit lindquistfuneralhome.com to share condolences, memories and tributes with the Stewart family.  

For those who wish, memorial donations may be made to the Animal Refuge League, P.O. Box 336, Westbrook, ME 04098 or to Beacon Hospice, 54 Atlantic Place, South Portland, ME 04106.