LEWISTON – Stephen James only learned of his mother’s teenage brush with fame – traveling with legendary Maine politician Margaret Chase Smith – after she died.

It didn’t surprise him, though.

His mother, Priscilla Aveline Marble James, a 4-foot-11-inch bundle of energy, did things differently from other folks. She traveled to Washington with Smith, one year after Smith’s first election to Congress and six months before America’s entry into World War II, drove her own car and worked outside the home when many women tried to live the ideal of a homemaker.

“She was a pretty independent little lady,” Stephen James said of his mother, who died in March after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. She will be memorialized Saturday morning at the Oquossoc Union Church in the Oquossoc Village in Rangeley.

Her independence seemed to find other independent people, including U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe and former Gov. James Longley.

Snowe was a little girl when she lived beside the James family on Elm Street in Lewiston. Priscilla and her husband, Francis, had been high school sweethearts who married in 1942. Their children were little when Snowe would come over and lend a hand in the kitchen.

“Pris taught Olympia to make pies, cakes or whatever,” Francis said.

It began a relationship that lasted for decades. Snowe visited the couple at their Oquossoc home and visited Priscilla at a nursing home, where she spent her final 10 years.

Her friendship with James Longley also lasted for decades. For more than three years, Priscilla worked for the future governor as his secretary in his Lewiston insurance agency.

“Jim could be very demanding,” Francis said. But Priscilla liked him. She left his office in 1963 to work in the family business in Freeport, the Freeport Variety Store.

When Longley became governor in 1975, he’d often stop by and order ice cream at the old-fashioned fountain.

“People were drawn to my mother,” Stephen said. She had lots of energy and an uncanny memory. She remembered every telephone number or license plate she saw.

She loved teaching Stephen and his sister, Suzan, about plants, birds and animals.

But mostly, she was loved for her heart, Francis said. “She was such a good-hearted person.”

He recalled how she loved feeding birds. She raised a rooster as a pet, named him “Cheetah” and dug worms for him to eat.

One day, she made a haphazard shot with her son’s BB gun at some crows and killed one with an impossible-to-repeat shot. Some would have thought it was luck. Not she.

She wept, Francis said.

“She was so sorry,” he said. “I knew she’d never pick up a gun again.”