PARIS — A thankful community is gathering Tuesday at McLaughlin Garden & Homestead to remember one of western Maine’s most steadfast preservationists, Andrea Burns.

Burns passed away June 23 at her home in Norway, following a two-year battle with glioblastoma.

Her celebration of life is Tuesday at McLaughlin Garden on Main Street in South Paris, starting at 4 p.m.

She was a well-known figure in Oxford Hills for decades after settling in Waterford with her husband Hank and sons Jay and Brewster in 1971. She taught for 25 years at the Mildred M. Fox School in South Paris.

Burns’ retirement in 1996 came at a most opportune time for McLaughlin Garden, a Paris landmark that could have been lost if not for a group of like-minded volunteers determined to save Bernard McLaughlin’s home and extensive gardens following his 1995 passing.

According to Lee Dassler, who was part of that early team and became McLaughlin Garden’s first executive director, Burns was critical to preserving the homestead.

“Andy was a light,” Dassler recalled during an interview with Advertiser Democrat last week. “I’d never met such an organizer. She knew who to talk to, how to talk to them, to get things done. She was an enormous asset for the organization.”

The McLaughlin Foundation was able to purchase the property in 1997, and Burns became its board president. She was instrumental in getting McLaughlin Garden listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“She was willing to do whatever work was necessary,” Dassler continued. “Whether it was weeding, painting, cleaning, networking or organizing.”

“How quickly that could have been lost,” Burns said in her final Advertiser Democrat interview last year. “Instead, the buildings and more than 500 species of flowering plants, trees and shrubs were saved, becoming a garden museum, open and free to the public.”

In preserving Bernard McLaughlin’s legacy and guiding the property into a public garden, Burns found a calling she would dedicate the next 30 years to. She joined Maine Preservation, becoming involved with historic site projects all over the state.

Closer to home, she led Norway Downtown from the early 2000s, establishing a board of directors that has been instrumental to the town’s revitalization. As Burns explained to the Advertiser Democrat last year: “A preservation-based economy is economic development.”

Among the stewards who joined Burns in her preservation work were Bruce Cook, Scott Berk and Brenda Melhus. Cook passed away in 2020, but Berk and Melhus continue to lead the organization with other well-known community leaders.

“The incredible gift I’ve had is a broad vision of Norway, and other towns, when I was on Maine Preservation’s board,” Burns told the Advertiser last year. “You go in the town and start talking to people and you know immediately what they want, [which is] to create a sense of life.”

Norway was designated as a “Main Street Maine” community by 2002, an economic approach that embraces using traditional and historic assets to revive local business establishments.

Burns then began a mission to save the Norway Opera House block, lobbying to have it be included on Maine Preservations list of most threatened buildings. The work to return the opera house to an active performance and arts center continues as a multi-tiered restoration, under the guidance of the volunteer-driven Opera House Corporation.

Preserving one Main Street block was not enough. Norway Downtown targeted another iconic but crumbing brick building a few doors down, which had previously housed the Odd Fellows organization.

The long-neglected property was eventually purchased by Portland housing developer Mike Hanes, who has partnered with the town of Norway and Norway Downtown to pursue a project to bring 16 affordable apartments and ground-level commercial space to Main Street.

Two years ago, after receiving planning board approval, Hanes invited community stakeholders to tour the building. Burns was one of the dozens in attendance and enthusiastically endorsed this vision.

“Your attention to historic detail is commendable,” Burns told Hanes during a Q&A session inside the Odd Fellows Feb. 6, 2023. “That is what has drawn my support.”

When three properties of the Higgins-Crooker Trust, including the James Crooker House on Deering Street, were endangered, Burns once again organized a rescue and turned to Maine Preservation for assistance.

The town of Norway took ownership of the buildings, with plans to resell them, and Burns facilitated historic easements with Maine Preservation to ensure their architectural legacies would be honored by future owners. Proceeds from those real estate sales were reinvested back into Norway’s community to assist at risk residents.

And when perhaps the most fabled landmark on Main Street, The Gingerbread House, was in danger of being demolished, Burns and others founded the Norway Landmarks Preservation Society, raising the money to purchase and move the three-story building to a new site in 2011. Its exterior was preserved using its saviors’ sweat equity, more support from Maine Preservation, and with bootstrap and grant fundraising.

Like other properties Burns has been involved with rescuing, The Gingerbread House was sold to a private owner who continues to restore its interior and bring new purpose to Main Street. NLPS is using income from the sale to revitalize other properties in town, including assistance to help non-commercial historic property owners maintain architectural integrity.

Said Dassler, “from the time Andy tackled McLaughlin Garden, she recognized that a vernacular garden is a vital part of the community. She was determined to keep Bernard McLaughlin’s mission going. To make the world a better place with a unique lilac garden in little Paris, Maine.

“She is already so missed.”