CUMBERLAND FORESIDE — Sally Blanchard Maynard, 86, died peacefully Dec. 9 at her home of 56 years. She was born in Winchester, Massachusetts, Sept 2, 1929, one of five children born to Dean and Esther Parshley Blanchard.

Sally graduated from Winchester High School in 1947 and married the late Robert L. (Bob) Maynard on June 16, 1951. Sally attended Colby College in Waterville for two years, and graduated in 1951 from Tufts University’s Eliot-Pearson Children’s School in Boston. She loved children and taught nursery school for a short time in Lexington, Massachusetts. Later on she was a teacher’s aide at the Mabel I. Wilson School in Cumberland.

The Blanchards moved from Massachusetts to South Freeport and several areas in Portland. In 1959 the family moved to the Foreside, where they raised their family.

Maynard’s love of nature and the sea began when she summered at her great-grandfather’s homestead on the shore of Broad Cove in Cumberland.

Maynard decided to pursue a career as a dental hygienist, graduating from the former Westbrook College in Portland in 1979. She worked for many years for Drs. Russell and Regan in the Woodfords area of Portland, and continued in the field until 2011, when she retired at age 82.

In the last few years of her life she rekindled her love of woodworking by volunteering at the Maine Maritime Museum wood shop in Bath. At 84 she built a bird feeder at the shop that was an exact replica of a feeder her father made at about the same time in his life.

She loved to cook, and visit antique stores, thrift shops and yard sales. Blanchard also enjoyed traveling around Maine with her partners in crime in “The Travel Club” and other friends.

She is survived by her sisters, Esther and Carolyn; a twin brother, Dean; a daughter, Sara; two sons, Todd and Bill; 10 grandchildren, Abigail, Ryan, Robert, Clarissa, Rachel, Robert, Joshua, Esther, Daniel, Dean and Nicholas; and four great-grandchildren, Carter, Logan, Vienna, and Jonah.

A memorial service is planned for Dec. 29, at 1 p.m. at the Falmouth Congregational Church, 267 Falmouth Road, Falmouth.

The family asks that in lieu of flowers, a donation to the Maine Maritime Museum or the Salvation Army be considered.

Maymard