BANGOR – Eastern Maine is mourning the death Wednesday of a woman whose community leadership spanned more than four decades.

Catherine E. Cutler was remembered Thursday as a tireless advocate for family and child services, mental health care reform and education in eastern Maine, both on her own and with her husband, Dr. Lawrence Cutler, who died in Bangor in 1984. She was 89.

“She was a highly intelligent lady who devoted herself to do good works in our community,” Joseph Pickering Jr., executive director of Community Health and Counseling, said of Cutler. “She had outstanding leadership qualities and always gave so much.

“She was high-spirited and she was strong-willed,” Pickering said. “She was sharp and witty. She never minced words. I think the Bangor community has lost one of its jewels. We are all diminished by her passing.”

One of Cutler’s many gifts was her ability to mobilize volunteers, noted Ann Schonberger, a steering committee member for Spruce Run, another area organization Cutler served.

“She knew everyone and she knew who had what connections and what their strengths were,” Schonberger said Thursday. “Kay was a regal but compassionate kind of woman. She had a real presence.”

Born in Bangor, Cutler was the daughter of Ida Goldsmith Epstein and Harry H. Epstein. She attended Bangor public schools, graduated from Wellesley College in 1935. She returned to Wellesley and earned a master’s in economics in 1938. A year later, she married Dr. Cutler, an internist who later became chief of the medical service at Eastern Maine Medical Center and chairman of the Bangor School Board and University of Maine System board of trustees.

From 1942 to 1945, while her husband served in the U.S. Army in the Pacific theater, Cutler was an economist with the War Labor Board in Washington, D.C.

Cutler began her career in mental health and social services after returning to Bangor after World War II. One of her initial accomplishments was leading the successful effort to persuade the Legislature to move responsibility for mental health services in Maine from the Bureau of Prisons to a separate agency.

Over the next 40 years, she served on the boards of numerous organizations, among them Bangor-Brewer Community Chest and United Community Services, and the Jewish Community Council, among many others.

As president of Family and Child Services of Bangor and founding president of the Eastern Maine Guidance Center, Cutler led the effort to merge the two agencies into CHCS, which today serves five counties in eastern Maine. She then served several terms on the CHCS board.

Cutler was among 20 women from across the nation chosen to go to Washington, D.C., in 1965 for special training in counseling women. Upon her return to Bangor, she landed a federal grant and founded the Women’s Information and Advisory Service, which provided career counseling over several years to more than 1,500 Maine women who wanted to resume or begin new careers.

Cutler also directed the development of Spruce Run, an agency that serves women and children affected by domestic violence in eastern Maine.

In 1983, she led the capital campaign that raised funds to purchase, renovate and equip Spruce Run’s shelter. In 1995, she co-chaired a second capital campaign that established the agency’s resource center.

Cutler was one of the first recipients of the Mary Ann Hartman Award presented annually by the University of Maine’s Women in the Curriculum and Women’s Studies Program to Maine women of exceptional achievement. She received the award in 1986.

Cutler is survived by three sons and their families.

Funeral services are scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday at the Jewish Funeral Chapel, 118 Center St. in Bangor. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made in her memory to Spruce Run, P.O. Box 653, Bangor 04402-0653.