SCARBOROUGH – Frances Nelson Fink, of 15 Estate Drive, died Monday, May 26, 2003, at the Maine Veterans Home in Scarborough.

Born in Augusta, the daughter of Roland and Beatrice Colfer Nelson, she graduated from Portland High School and the University of Maine.

She taught English and history at Portland High School in the mid-1940s and later in Lewiston schools and at Mid-State College.

For more than 30 years, she was a legislative advocate for civil rights and for human service programs for developmentally disabled people.

She was one of the founders of the Association for the Mentally Retarded in Rumford, a founder of the Occupational Training Center (later Pathways) in Auburn, a founder and past president of the John F. Murphy Foundation in Auburn and wrote the federal grant and served as president of the Advocates for the Developmentally Disabled, presently called the Maine Advocacy Center.

As a young woman, she was active in the League of Women Voters, a founder of the Maine Right to Life and taught Christian Doctrine for many years in various Catholic parishes.

She served on the board of directors of the Red Cross and the United Way in Lewiston-Auburn. She was a member of St. Maximilian Kolbe Church and the Friends of the Scarborough Public Library.

Survivors include three sons, John M. Fink of Dorchester, Mass., Jeffrey E. Fink and his wife, Robyn of Scarborough and Robert W. Fink of Scarborough; a grandson, Benjamin M. Fink of Scarborough; and several nieces, nephews and cousins.

She was predeceased by her husband, John E. Fink, who died in 2000 and a brother, Maurice R. Nelson, who died in 1980.


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