FARMINGTON – After a long life of quiet service to others, Ethel Catherine Paradis Emerson, 86, died peacefully in her sleep at the Orchard Park Nursing Home in Farmington, Aug. 11, after a short, stoic battle with pancreatic cancer.

She was born in Boston, Mass., May 13, 1921, the only child of Leon and Alice (McDougall) Paradis.

After her father’s tragic death in 1931, she and her mother moved, through the efforts of the Maine Seacoast Mission, to the Good Will School in Hinckley, where her mother was a house mother at Kyes cottage for more than 20 years.

She graduated from Averill High School at Good Will in 1939, as valedictorian of her class, and then entered Colby College in Waterville, where she met her future husband of 64 years, W. Merritt Emerson Jr.

After her graduation from Colby in December 1942 with a double major in chemistry and physics, she married Merritt in Syracuse, N.Y., in 1943. During World War II, while her husband served in the Army Air Corps, she worked for the U.S. government as a lab technician. After the war, the couple settled in Merritt’s hometown of Bangor, while he completed his studies at the University of Maine at Orono.

After the birth of her three children, she began a career of more than 25 years as a public school teacher serving in the schools of Stratton, Jay and Farmington. For nearly 30 years she also operated the Falls Book Barn in Farmington Falls, dealing in all kinds of books, from five cent used paperbacks to rare antiquarian literary works. She and Merritt were founding members of the Farmington Alliance for the Mentally Ill, and served on the Board of Directors of Tri-County Mental Health Services for many years. Together they received a commendation from the governor of the state of Maine for their service to the mentally ill community in Maine.

She was a member of the Maine Teachers Association, the Maine Antiquarian Bookseller’s Association and the National Association of University Women.

She is survived by her husband, Merritt of Farmington; her son, Sanford and his wife, Kathy, of Wilton; her daughter, Elaine Smith and her husband, Kenneth, of Livermore Falls; as well as grandson Scotti Smith and his wife, Tiffany, of Livermore Falls; and granddaughter Amie Smith of Rockland, whose daughter, Catherine, is her adored great-granddaughter.

She was predeceased by her son, Gene Emerson, who died in 1991 after suffering from schizophrenia for many years.

The family especially thanks the staff of the Orchard Park Nursing Home and the Franklin Memorial Hospital, as well as Doctors, James Smith and Phillip Auger, for their loving care of Ethel.