Anne A. Mazlish

Bar Harbor

Anne Adele Austin Mazlish died on July 16, 2025, at age 91 following a short illness, with her sons by her side, at her home in Birch Bay, Bar Harbor, ME. She was born on February 6, 1934, in Norwalk, CT., the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. James Benedict Austin of Darien, CT. She was the eldest of three daughters and one son.

Anne attended the Ethel Walker School and Mount Holyoke College, spending her junior year in France with the Sweet Briar Group. She graduated in 1955 with a major in history and political science. Her first job was as a journalist at the Boston Herald newspaper, where she worked for seven years. She married Bruce Mazlish, a professor of history at M.I.T., and they had two children, Anthony and Jared Mazlish. The family lived in Cambridge and spent summers in Seal Harbor on Mount Desert Island, ME. During that period of her life, she served as committee chair of a number of study committees and as an officer of the Cambridge League of Women Voters and became an active member of the Cambridge Plant and Garden Club. Later she also joined the Mount Desert Garden Club.

She and her husband were divorced and Anne founded "Serendipity Tours," an international garden tour business, with two friends, which lasted about 10 years. When the business closed, Anne moved half time to Somesville, ME., going back and forth between Mount Desert Island and Cambridge, MA for about eight years before finally settling permanently in Somesville, ME. At that point, she often spent several months of winter in Vero Beach, FL.

Anne was a writer with a love of history, and early on after moving to Maine, she became involved with the Somesville Village Improvement Society and then the Mount Desert Island Historical Society. As a writer of poetry, she also completed two books, "Hearing the Weather Fall" and "Stranger Walking" that were published on the island at a fine printing press, Highloft, in Seal Harbor. As a member of the Somesville Village Improvement Society, she designed and launched a costumed historic walking tour recreating the early years of Somesville. Later as President of the MDI Historical Society, she researched and wrote a book enlarging the diary of the first summer visit of wealthy and prominent visitors to the Island in 1855. It was called the "Tracy Log" and published in Bar Harbor to benefit the Society which had embarked on a significant period of growth and influence during her tenure.

Anne was also very proud of having learned to sail at the age of thirty in the summers in Seal Harbor. This led to her buying a small racing boat called "Shanti." The Mercury class, at the time, had weekly races in Northeast Harbor. She finally joined the fleet there so she could race regularly, which she did with some success for 34 years, ending her final years at the helm of a Bullseye in the Southwest Harbor Fleet.

Living on the Island year-round especially appealed to Anne because of the nature of its participatory culture, giving people the opportunity to try other ventures in which they were interested, but which in city life are mostly professional. Anne relished singing with the summer choral and the Surry Opera which also included performing trips to Russia and Japan. She took acting classes, leading to a monologue performance of "The Belle of Amherst," a play about Emily Dickinson whose poetry she particularly admired.

Anne leaves behind her sons; Tony and wife Anne, and Jared and wife Darcy; and six grandchildren, Zachary, Dean, Eve, Jacob, Caleb and Devan, all of whom she dearly loved. She also leaves her sister Jennefer Hirshberg and her brother James B. Austin, Jr. She was predeceased by her sister Meredith Walkington.

A celebration of Anne's life will be held 9 A.M. Sunday August 3, 2025, at the Somesville Union Meeting House, UCC, 1136 Main St. Mt. Desert.

Condolences may be expressed at www.jordanfernald.com