MaryAnne Reinert, 81, a Vashon resident for the past quarter-century, died unexpectedly in her sleep in the early morning hours of July 3. Daughter of Lionel and Jeanette Hallowell, she was born on May 17, 1932, in Seattle, where she grew up in the Maple Leaf district of the city. During her childhood, her family spent summers in a Corbin Beach cabin, where she developed a love of the saltwater and the Island that stayed with her for the rest of her life.

At age 11, she joined Camp Fire Girls and was active in that organization all the way through high school. After her graduation from Roosevelt High School in 1950, she attended the University of Washington, where she was a member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority, active in dramatics, and a major in sociology. For the remainder of her life, she continued to claim that she viewed the world and human activity through the eyes of a sociologist.

On the campus of the University of Washington, she met Roger Porter, a graduate student in chemistry. The couple married in 1953, and after Porter completed his doctorate in 1956, they moved to the Bay area in California, where their two daughters were born. When the marriage ended a few years later, MaryAnne returned to school to get her teaching credentials, and then she and the girls moved to Seattle in 1967.

In Seattle in 1967, it was virtually unheard of for a single woman to buy a house in her own name. But when she arrived in Seattle with a contract as an elementary school teacher in the Edmonds District, she was able to convince the bank that she was not a credit risk. After her second year in the Edmonds District, she met Harry Reinert,Jr., a faculty member at Edmonds High School.On Halloween 1969, they began a marriage that lasted until her death 43 years later. With the marriage, she also acquired five step-sons. The couple had their own son the next year.

When her husband retired, the couple moved to Vashon in 1989, which MaryAnne felt was a homecoming. On the Island, she was a volunteer in several schools and in the Time Out program for the Senior Center. On occasion she became a political activist, always in support of the downtrodden and helpless.

Raised as an Episcopalian, she became very ecumenical in her adult years. At St. Catherine's Catholic Church in Seattle, she was accepted as a member of the Lay Order of Carmelites.On Vashon, in addition to Church of the Holy Spirit, she frequently attended mass at St. Patrick's and St John Vianney Catholic Church, and at the same time was also active with the Baptist congregation at the Burton Community Church. She was a longtime regular supporter of Union Gospel Mission in Seattle.

First with a tent, and later with an RV, the couple explored the West Coast from British Columbia to California. She was uneasy about airplanes, but for their 25th anniversary, she overcame that long enough for the couple to celebrate their 25th anniversary on Kauai in Hawaii. They also discovered the joy of train travel, and in 2000, they spent a month boxing the continent by rail.

MaryAnne was known for her good natured sense of humor, curiosity and love of adventure. But after the couple was bullied in moving from their Burton home in 2012, she steadfastly refused to sell the house and the couple moved back to Burton only two months prior to her death. Her step-son Tom, who had been visiting here only a few weeks before her death, wrote:I was struck by this [her determination] when she made up her mind last spring to get back to the house on Vashon despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles. I was impressed by her devotion to the place, how much she evidently loved it. I thought I could see something of that feeling when I visited last May. On the one hand she was struggling with the frailty which had made her bent nearly double and leaning on ski poles. On the other hand, she was grinning brightly the whole time. She was so weak in the one aspect and so sturdy and happy in the other! I'm glad I knew her. I'll miss her.

In addition to her husband, she is survived by her brother Robert Hallowell and wife Claire, Vashon; sister Elizabeth Haley, Ft. Collins, CO; daughters Laura Brustad, Auburn, and Ruth Tilman, Flagstaff, AZ; son Lionel Reinert, Lynnwood; step-sons Harry III and Rick Reinert, Seattle; Thomas Reinert, Chapel Hill, NC; Ted Reinert, New York City; and Andrew Reinert, Gambier, OH; five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

The life of MaryAnne Reinert will be celebrated on July 27 at 1 p.m. in a memorial service at the Vashon United Methodist Church, conducted by the church pastor, the Rev. Dr. Kathryn A. Morse, and by the Rev. Bruce Chittick, pastor at Burton Community Church.