LIVERMORE FALLS – Sadie McLaughlin was the first woman granted a license to drive a taxi in South Portland in 1946.

McLaughlin, born in 1910, saw a need as a young woman for the service to take people beyond the bus line where it stopped in Cape Elizabeth, where she lived at the time, to South Portland.

It was when gas and tires were rationed during World War II and people couldn’t drive their cars, she said Tuesday sitting in her living room.

She opened her own taxi business, Cape Taxi, and drove taxi and was later joined by her late husband, Earl, and their two sons, now both deceased.

At 97, she still remembers picking up her passengers and taking them to South Portland as well as picking up schoolchildren and taking them to their grandmother’s or taking older people to the “green front” – the liquor store.

Customers nicknamed the couple Mr. and Mrs. Mac. They charged 50 cents a person for travel fare.

McLaughlin has led a storied life, growing up in the small town of Lubec, one of 14 children, she the 13th child and now the only survivor.

On Monday, another page to her life story was added when Town Manager Martin Puckett presented her with the Boston Post Cane as the town’s oldest resident.

McLaughlin moved to Livermore Falls 20 years ago and lives with her daughter-in-law, Nathalie McLaughlin, and granddaughter Earline Barger.

Sadie McLaughlin held many jobs in her career, some she did for a free and others she made money on. Among her talents were nursing people in time of need and owning Cape Lobster Shop with a sister prior to spending 10 years driving taxi.

When the taxi business became too strenuous, McLaughlin and her husband got out of the taxi business and went into real estate in South Portland.

Due to failing health, the couple semi-retired and moved to Manchester, N.H., to be closer to their youngest son and then later went back into the real estate business.

In 1987, her husband decided he wanted to go back to Maine and they moved to Livermore Falls.

When McLaughlin learned she was to be presented with the Boston Post Cane, she hadn’t realized how old she was, she said.

“I said, ‘Oh my goodness, that’s a big number,'” McLaughlin said. “I hadn’t been thinking of age. I thought it was quite an honor.”

She credits keeping busy for keeping her healthy and mentally sharp, she said.

She has a little loss of balance and uses a walker to stabilize her, but other than that she gets around fine.