LEWISTON – Mary Jane Dench, 55, of Poland, died from cancer on Thursday, Nov. 17, at Central Maine Medical Center.

She was born March 24, 1950, at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver, Colo., the daughter of Alfred L. Mellor and Virginia (Nogas) Mellor, the second of their four daughters. Mary Jane attended Chelmsford High School in Massachusetts, where she was a member of the National Honor Society and graduated in 1968. She attended Wheaton College and Simmons College, both in Massachusetts, earning a Bachelor of Science in child development from Simmons in 1972, and the University of Maine at Farmington, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in home economics in 1978 and was a Florence Jenkins Scholar in 1978. Always scholarly, Mary Jane studied Middle English, Italian and Anglo-Saxon as a special student at Bowdoin College, and French at the Centre d’etudes Franco-Americain in Lisieux, France, in 1990, for a certificate with distinction. She also attended the University of Southern Maine in 1990 to 1992, where she took French courses for certification.

Mary Jane married Bryan M. Dench on Sept. 4, 1971, in Cambridge, Mass. Though growing up in different towns, they were high school sweethearts. After working to support them while her husband attended law school, she moved to Lewiston-Auburn in 1975 and taught briefly at St. Joseph’s School in Lewiston, until she deferred any further career ambitions to raise their three children as a full-time mother.

Later, Mary Jane worked as a French residency teacher in the Auburn School System from 1993 to 1999, a French teacher at St. Peter’s School in 1996 and from 1999 to 2000 and French teacher at Minot Consolidated School, 2000 to 2001. Most recently, she was employed by the wonderful people at North Atlantic Regional High School as a regional academic dean for home-school portfolio review and transcript analysis. She also taught as a substitute teacher at Minot and as a volunteer French tutor at Poland Regional High School. She volunteered as a French Residency Curriculum Development Committee member in the Auburn schools, and in the Oxford Elementary School after-school program teaching French. All her adult life, however, her primary vocation was as mother to her three children and the maker of a wonderful home for her family.

Mary Jane was a member of the Poland Baptist Church. Beloved, like Dorcas, by many, she was a leader of the Ladies’ Bible Study. Because she placed her complete trust in Jesus Christ alone, we have no need to fear for her now.

She is survived by her husband of 34 years; by her three dear children, Elisabeth Jane Bergst of Portland, Joseph Charles Dench, a corporal in the U.S. Army at Fort Riley, Kan., and Charlotte Ann Dench, University of Connecticut and University of Southern Maine; her three sisters, Cynthia M. Chase of Topsham, Christine M. Hebert of Virginia Beach, Va., and Kathleen A. Majka of Sidney; two nieces; and a nephew.

Her parents predeceased her.

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