POLAND SPRING – Virginia Arnold Leonard, 77, of Poland Spring, died July 30, at her home surrounded by those who loved her. She endured a long and courageous battle against breast cancer. To the very end, she was a loving and giving wife, mother and friend.

She was born on March 17, 1930, in Newnan, Ga., the only child of Virginia and Stanford Arnold. She grew up in Newnan and graduated with high honors from Newnan High School in 1947. She received her bachelor’s degree from Agnes Scott College in Atlanta and became a mathematics teacher at the high-school level. She also served at a school for unwed mothers outside of Atlanta.

In midlife, she returned to university studies under a Danforth Fellowship, earning a master’s degree in mathematics from Georgia State University and studying higher mathematics at Emory University.

In the early 1970s, she became an administrator and mathematics instructor at Agnes Scott. In 1984, she accepted a joint position with her husband at the college. Before her first bout with breast cancer, she was working with her husband on a software package that was the first symbolic mathematics education program for university students.

She married William Leonard in 1974. The couple summered in Poland Spring before moving to Maine permanently in 1987, to share a simple lifestyle on a farm in the country. She became an avid hiker, canoeist, camper and bicyclist, and she continued to be active throughout her illness. Along with her husband, she gave her time and support to several causes that were important to her, including the environment, civil liberties and the cause of peace.

She is survived by her loving husband, Bill; her oldest daughter, Cathy Lovern, and her husband, John; her sons, William and Stanford Diehl; her youngest daughter, Melissa Pestle, and her husband, Jack; her stepson, Del Leonard, and his wife, Dianne and children, Sarah and Benjamin; her stepson, Jonathan Leonard, and his wife, Eleanor; her stepson, Bert Leonard; and her six beloved grandchildren, Katie, Emily and Chelsea Lovern, Nicholas and Jordan Diehl, and Michael Pestle; and many, many good friends whom she loved and who loved her. She will be greatly missed by her family, and never forgotten.