PORTLAND – Ernestine Mary Teresa Pecoraro passed away peacefully on Dec. 24, at Maine Medical Center. She had been admitted the previous evening with a case of pneumonia. She had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in September 2007, and was a resident of Sedgewood Commons in Falmouth.

Ernie was born in Westbrook, on March 28, 1923, and lived most of her life in Westbrook. She was the daughter of Frank and Anna Theriault, who had immigrated from Grand Anse, N.B. She was the middle of nine children, surviving all except her older sister, Rita, who still resides in Rhode Island.

She was predeceased in 1996 by her husband of nearly 50 years, Anthony Pecoraro of South Windham. Tony spent 24 years in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, so she was a traveling Army wife, having raised her family in Japan, Germany, Kansas, Vermont, Virginia and Louisiana.

Prior to her many years as a devoted housewife, she had been a full-time welder, working on both Liberty ships at the Portland docks and Bath Iron Works and Corsair airplanes at the Cleveland, Ohio Air Assembly Plant throughout World War II. Because of her diminutive size, she was always asked to weld in the smallest part of the ship or plane. She was handy throughout her life, creating patchwork quilts for charity, refinishing furniture, making silk flowers and remodeling many homes with her husband.

She was also an avid reader, reading a book a day for many years, enjoying primarily historical novels and murder mysteries. She loved the public library and was always thankful for the reading opportunities that Walker and Warren libraries provided to her, particularly during her Depression Era childhood. She often tucked a dollar in her returned books’ library card holder to “pay-back” for all the years of benefit she had received from her local libraries. She often said that libraries were the foundation of a functional democracy and later in life she donated to our libraries generously.

She is survived by three of her four children, Camilla Lampron and her husband, Tony, of Lewiston, Frank Pecoraro and his wife, Debbie, of Morada, Calif., and Raymond and Col. Joseph Pecoraro (Ret.) and his wife, Karen, of Ellicott City, Md.; seven grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren (so far) also survive her.

Her youngest child, Philip Pecoraro, who passed away in 1991, predeceased her.