Arlene Dougherty

Arlene was born in Portland, ME on March 4, 1939, the youngest of six children of Frederick P and Mary (Bernatchez) Dobson. She grew up in the inner city Washington Ave area and attended Portland schools, graduating from Portland High School. In 1956 she married Carl S. Dougherty, and together they shared 69 wonderful years raising their family in Portland, and later moving to Otisfield.

Arlene was predeceased by all her siblings: Winnie, Emily, Frederick, Stanley, and Elaine. She is survived by her loving husband, Carl S. Dougherty, Sr., children Carl and wife Debbie, David and fiancée Karen, and Katharine, grandchildren Alana, Liam, Emily, Mikaela, Maegan, and Tom, and great-grandchild Thomas.

Arlene was a petite woman, perfectly poised and dressed for every occasion. She loved having her hair and nails done. She also liked to stay busy and was a hard worker throughout her life. She stayed busy as a young wife and mother with the activities of her children, being a Cub Scout Den Mother for the boys, Brownie Troop Leader for her daughter, and volunteering at their elementary school when she wasn’t working. After retirement she also volunteered at the Otisfield elementary school, helping in the classroom, adoringly surrounded by children. She kept an immaculate house and dinner was always on the table at 5:30. Always striving to improve in many ways and advancing her career, she went from cashier at Shaw’s to their office bookkeeping, to her final job as office manager of Windham Electric when she retired. Then she got busy with her loves.

Besides the love of her life, husband Carl, and the love of her family, Arlene had many other loves. The love of gardening, love of baking, love of arts and crafts, love of taking pictures, love of travel, love of socializing, and most of all, the love of giving.

Arlene’s garden featured prominently at the front of the house with something always in bloom. She could be found frequently tending and picking fresh bouquets, or just sitting quietly admiring the flowers and the bees and hummingbirds, and of course the butterflies, her favorite.

She loved baking decorative cakes for holidays and family birthdays with custom themes of whatever her children and eventually grandchildren were into at the time. She baked apple and blueberry pies, and so many varieties of cookies and sweets for the holidays. Chocolate cakes with homemade frosting were her everyday specialty. There was always a fresh piece of cake on the counter at Nana’s house.

Besides the Arts and Crafts of birthday and special event custom cakes, Arlene loved crafting ceramics in classes in earlier days, making many holiday decorating treasures, and later days loved making her own intricate gift cards for friends and family, and her craft fair booth sales. If you received a card from Arlene, you had to remember to beware of spilling hidden confetti contents.

Arlene’s love of ‘Scrapbooking’ combined her love of family, taking pictures, and socializing into arts and crafts. She loved getting together with her scrapbooking group on Sundays, socializing and gathering photographs into moments on each page with creative treatments combined into an entire album of preserved treasured memories. Her final project was for her great grandson of his first six months and her love of being his great nana.

Arlene loved going places. She brought each of her granddaughters to NYC, for some one on one time celebrating their 16th birthday in the city and to see some shows. They returned as a group during the 2017 holiday season. She had some memorable trips, among them, to Europe aboard the Queen Mary 2 cruise ship. She convinced Carl Sr to take a trip to Florida with her and they went to Disney. She made other trips to Florida to visit friends or stay with her niece Barbara and her husband Mike, and a few times to Tennessee with her bestie Joan to visit her family. She went to Hawaii with Carl and family on vacation, and tagged along on their trips to the Jersey shore and Philadelphia with Alana in tow. She also took a trip to Bermuda with Alana. She went back to Hawaii with Alana in 2020, which she memorialized in a two volume scrapbook.

Arlene loved just being with her family and friends. She enjoyed time with old friends and making new ones. She loved being a member of the Red Hat Society and served as Queen of her local chapter. She so loved being Nana after being awarded six grandchildren in three years. Rather than being overwhelmed, she embraced it. Holidays were celebrated at Nana and Papa’s with Easter Egg hunts, Halloween parties with Nana dressed in unique homemade costumes and Papa’s haunted tractor rides, Thanksgiving dinners with so much home cooked food and Nana’s pies for dessert, and ultimately Christmas with so many cookies and sweet treats. Arlene loved Christmas, her absolute favorite time of year, which combined so many of her loves and loved ones, most of all her love of giving. You can’t do giving without shopping first, which was Arlene’s favorite sport. She was always hunting for a special gift for someone. Her gift giving wasn’t limited to Christmas, it was a year-round pastime. She was always giving, whether it was her time, an item she crafted, or the perfect “little something” she’d bought to surprise someone who had been kind to her.

You will notice the word “love” was used frequently to describe Arlene. Arlene had a deep love of all things in life and Arlene was loved so deeply.

Arlene’s family invites you to a time of visitation and celebration of a life well lived, Saturday, September 13, 1 pm - 3 pm, followed by a Catholic prayer service at 3 pm, at Jones, Rich & Barnes Funeral Home, 199 Woodford St., Portland, Maine. Please visit www.jonesrichandbarnes.com to leave condolences for the Dougherty family and sign Arlene's online guest book.