ROCKLAND — Roberta Dearborn Holbrook Best died June 23, 2015, at the Sussman House in Rockport. She was the daughter of Frederick Hartshorn and Louise Norwood Holbrook of Rockport and was born Jan. 28, 1920 at home on Mechanic Street in Camden. She was a woman who was intellectually curious her entire life. She met everyone without prejudice and thoroughly enjoyed a good political discussion, but only if the other party was well informed. She was a style maven as well.

Roberta grew up on Mechanic Street in Rockport. She often said that she had a wonderful childhood, spending every summer day with her best friend, Lois, rowing in Rockport Harbor. She graduated as the valedictorian for Rockport High School in 1937 and went on to attend Gorham Normal School (now part of the University of Southern Maine). From the comments in her yearbook, she was a wonderful dancer and actress but she did not feel academically challenged there and she chafed against a restrictive climate for women that insisted they be in their dorms by 5 p.m., while the men were allowed complete freedom. Perhaps that was the beginning of her lifelong disdain of any kind of injustice or prejudice. She graduated as a three-year student and went on to her first teaching assignment in Livermore Falls. After only one year she returned to Rockport to teach and then went to work at the Van Buren factory, taking a trolley to work.

During this time she saw a handsome man from afar and said to herself, that is the man that I am going to marry and she did. She married Gordon C. Best Sr. in 1942 and became a military spouse. Like many wartime brides, she spent years traveling back and forth from Rockport to her husband's next duty station. Her last trip was to Yokohama, Japan, taking two young children first on a train across country and then on a ship. After a year in Japan, the family then settled in Arlington, Va.

When Roberta was 40 years old, she separated from her husband and she decided to return to Gorham Normal School to complete her education and receive her Bachelor Degree in education. She began teaching in the Portland school district and was voted Best Teacher in Portland. She fought against the school department when they decided to implement standardized testing for kindergarteners and she won. When she was 50 years old, she attended Boston University and received a Masters of Special Education degree in one year with a GPA of 3.98. Unfortunately, there was no graduation ceremony that year because of the Kent State shootings. She then went on to be a reading consultant for Scott-Foreman Publishing and then as principal in the Brunswick School District. During this time, she met her soul mate, Teddy Alexander, and they had a wonderfully symbiotic relationship until his death and maybe even beyond that.

It was while she was working in Portland that she made the acquaintance of a woman, Emily Auclair, who introduced her to Eastport. She fell in love with the small city and bought a summer home. Later, when she retired from teaching, she obtained a real estate broker's license and opened Best Realty in Eastport. She loved houses. She flipped houses long before it was fashionable. She would buy a house with good bones and transform it into something beautiful. She often said that living in Eastport was the best part of her life.

To be closer to her family, she closed her real estate office and bought her first house in Rockland in the 80s. She was currently working on her second house there, on Mechanic Street in Rockland, and she thought that it would be closing the circle to die while she lived there. She began her life on Mechanic Street in Camden, lived her childhood on Mechanic Street in Rockport and died while living on Mechanic Street in Rockland.

Roberta was the half-sister of 2nd Lt. Albert Davis Holbrook, who was one of the first two Rockland men to be killed in France during World War I. He was attending Bowdoin College when he enlisted in the Army. The loss of this young man had a tremendous effect on both her mother and father, and she felt that loss in the household while growing up. The first American Legion Post in Maine was in Rockland and named the Winslow-Holbrook American Legion Post 1 in honor of her brother and Pvt. Arthur Winslow, another casualty of the war in France. In 1918, the corner of Main and Park streets in Rockland was also designated as Winslow-Holbrook Square in memory of their sacrifice. She became aware in 2005 that this designation had been forgotten and she fought for 10 years to correct that and to try to insure that their sacrifices would not be forgotten again. She felt this was a debt she had to repay. With great effort, she successfully worked to have the park at the corner of Main and Park streets be officially named the Winslow-Holbrook Memorial Veterans Park in 2009 and with the help of several local people and businesses, a memorial marker was placed in that park in 2012. In an official ceremony in the Winslow-Holbrook Memorial Veterans Park on Veterans Day 2014, she was presented with several medals, including the Purple Heart, honoring her half-brother, 2nd Lt. Albert D. Holbrook. Even at the age of 95, she continued to address the Rockland City Council to keep the park open to the public.

Roberta was fearless. Whether it was surviving the sinking of the Castine in 1935 (when two people drowned) or an earthquake in Guatemala in 1976 in which 25,000 people died or traveling to the West Indies or starting a new business or just walking alone from the South End of Rockland to Main Street at the age of 94 using a walker. She was always open to new experiences and always interested in learning about people, places and houses. At 95, she was still redecorating her latest home.

Roberta is survived by her daughter and best friend, Katherine Gaye Best and her husband, Jim Price; her son, Gordon C. Best Jr. and his wife, Ellie; her grandchildren, Jessica Holbrook Skidmore, David Brandon Best and his wife, Victoria, Stephen Holbrook Best and his wife, Ashley, and Kathryn Elizabeth Best; and her great-grandchildren, Fyona, Naomi, Paxton, Sterling, Arabella, Adelaide, Simon and his brother to come.

A celebration of life will be held Thursday, July 9 from 3 to 5 p.m. at 104 Limerock St. in Rockland. All are welcome.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Pope Memorial Humane Society of Knox County, P.O. Box 1294, Rockland, ME 04841.

Arrangements are by Burpee, Carpenter & Hutchins Funeral Home.