Mary Goranites, the aunt who raised U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, died Saturday.

LEWISTON – Mary Goranites, a fixture in the Greek community and the woman who raised U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe along with five children of her own, died Saturday at Central Maine Medical Center. She was 92.

Goranites’ story is one of devotion, courage and perseverance. It’s an immigrant’s tale that began in the years before World War II and continued until last weekend when she drew her last breath with family gathered around.

“She was an inspiration to me because of her devotion to family, to the church and the community,” Snowe said. “She set a high standard. … She was a great anchor, an important anchor in my life.”

Goranites arrived in the United States in 1936 and married James Goranites a year later. She spent the next 70 years in Maine, helping to build a family and a Greek community in Lewiston and Auburn.

With five children already, the Goranites family took in Snowe, their niece, when she was just 9 years old, raising her alongside their own – two boys and three girls. Snowe’s mother died when she was 8 and her father about a year later.

Mary Goranites worked third shift at the Continental Mill in Lewiston with every dollar she earned sent straight to the bank, saving to send the children to college. James, a barber, died in 1963, leaving her with six children scattered between high school and college.

“She worked so hard,” Snowe said. “She persevered.”

Born Oct. 14, 1913, in Konnakia, Greece, a remote village in Laconia, she arrived in the United States on Valentine’s Day, getting into the country just under the quota for immigration at the time. Along with her contemporaries, Goranites became part of the foundation for the L-A Greek community, which was originally centered around Lincoln Street and the old Greek Orthodox Church there.

“They worked really, really hard, and they built these communities here and in other states,” said Georgia Chomas, one of Goranites’ daughters. “My generation grew up straddling two cultures.”

With a large family, money was tight but many of the things that might be considered extras were never out of reach.

“When I was a kid, I had to have the latest fashions,” Chomas said. “I would take her to Ward Brothers and show her what I wanted. We’d go to the mill and get the wool cloth, and she made it.”

There were piano lessons, Greek class and dance, too, Chomas said.

To her children, Goranitis instilled the value of a good education, Snowe said.

Between the little girl who would one day be a U.S. senator and the Greek woman who would raise her like a daughter, there was a special relationship with roots that went undiscovered by the family until Goranites’ 80th birthday.

“My mother’s mother – she lost her mother the same way when she was only 8,” Chomas said. “She had a special relationship with Olympia. She really understood how Olympia, as a little girl, felt when she lost her mother.”

“She gave me a very supportive foundation in my own life,” Snowe said. “She loved the fact that I was in politics. She was very politically astute and had a remarkable ability and acumen for politics.”

Through her commitment to the Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity, Goranites will have a lasting impact on the community.

“She was sort of that thread that was woven through that church’s history,” Snowe said, recalling the Herculean tasks that Goranites would undertake.

Just four or five years ago, Snowe said, Goranites used 200 pounds of flour for her Christmas baking duties.

She baked the bread for the services, made food for the Greek Festival, had her special spot in a pew upfront, the family said.

“She wasn’t one to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do,” said Stavros Mendros, a Lewiston city councilor and Goranites’ godchild. “She lived the right way as an example.”

Both Snowe and Chomas described a conversation that they had with a priest who had known Goranites for many years.

The priest, they said, described her as a “living saint.”

“‘There was a light, an inner glow that made you feel like you were the most important person in her life,'” Chomas quoted the priest as saying to her. “‘She was the cornerstone of Holy Trinity in Lewiston,’ he said. When you hear someone describe your mother that way, it’s very special.”

Goranites remained tenacious, even during the last days of her life, asking for food from the Greek Festival and even attending on Sept. 9 despite relying upon a wheelchair.

She was in the hospital last week with a good prognosis and was expected to return Sept. 28 to her Auburn home, where she had lived for more than 60 years.

On Thursday, her condition started to deteriorate. On Friday, things got much worse.

“She began calling us and telling us to get over there,” Chomas said. “We expected her to rally, but she knew. She was crocheting a baby blanket for my second grandchild, who’s due in November, and kept saying ‘I have to finish the blanket, I have to finish the blanket.'”

The family made it in time to say their goodbyes, Chomas and Snowe said.

By early Saturday evening, she was gone. Snowe described the cause as congestive heart failure or organ failure.

“She was a great source of strength and courage in my life,” Snowe said. “She was extraordinary. She meant everything to me.”