SCARBOROUGH — Mary Adella (Geer) August, 93, died Sept. 12 in Holbrook Health Center, at Piper Shores Retirement Community.

August was born March 20, 1922, in Portland, to George I. Geer and Jennie E. (Merrill) Geer, the seventh of eight children.

She attended schools in Westbrook, graduated from Deering High School in 1940, and graduated from Northeast Business School in Portland. She then worked as a teller at a Portland bank.

She married Kastic C. August, a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, on June 1, 1946, at Immanuel Baptist Church in Portland. They soon moved to Boston, where her husband earned a degree from Harvard Business School, and where their first child was born. Her husband’s work took the family next to Chicago, where two more children were born. In 1959, they moved to the suburb of Park Ridge, Illinois.

In the early 1980s, August and her husband bought a cottage at Higgins Beach in Scarborough. There, they had often spent summer vacations, coming back to visit Mary’s large family. In 1989, the couple moved to a condominium in Prospect Heights, Illinois. After her husband’s death on Feb. 25, 1996, August returned to live at Higgins Beach. She moved to Piper Shores in 2001.

August was known as a devoted homemaker who loved her family. She was active in Manor Community Church in Chicago, and at the Park Ridge Community Church. She participated in her children’s schools and scouting activities, and served as an AFS mother to a high-school exchange student from the Netherlands.

She also was an enthusiastic hostess, always ready to entertain neighbors, family, friends and guests. In her free time, August enjoyed bridge, reading and traveling widely with her husband.

August was predeceased by her parents, her husband and her seven siblings.

She is survived by her son, John Geer August, of Princeton, New Jersey; her daughter, Virginia M. August, and her husband, Brian Zack, also of Princeton; her daughter, Susan L. August-Brown, and her husband, Mark Brown, of Scarborough; her grandchildren, Rebecca Callahan, Ian Zack, Daniel Zack and Lily August-Brown; and three great-grandchildren.

A funeral was held Sept. 18 at Hobbs Funeral Home, in South Portland. Burial followed at Woodlawn Cemetery, in Westbrook.

In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to Woodfords Congregational Church or to a charity of one’s choice.

August

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