Mary Dawson; civic activist, artist helped run science firm

Mary Cleeves Dawson, an artist in college, expanded her range of media later in life and won many awards.

Mary Cleeves Dawson, a social justice advocate who ran a Belmont scientific instruments company with her husband, died Dec. 19 of heart failure at her home in Sherborn. She was 91.

Born in Warrensburg, N.Y., she graduated from the former Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh in 1939 with a bachelor of arts degree in painting and design. While she was in school, Mrs. Dawson designed cards and note paper. At the Carnegie Museum, she prepared dioramas for animal and bird exhibits, which were novel display methods at the time.

Mrs. Dawson moved to Boston and worked in the Department of Restoration at the Museum of Fine Arts until the United States entered World War II.

As part of the war effort, Mrs. Dawson took courses in engineering drawing at Northeastern University. After her training, she worked for Zenith Products Co. in West Newton, where she produced mechanical drawings of special purpose pumps and designed the logo for the company.

Mrs. Dawson married her husband, Kenneth, in August 1945. For the next 40 years, the couple co-operated the Kenneth A. Dawson Co. Mrs. Dawson managed the office and worked on the mechanical drawings for the scientific instruments her husband produced.

Throughout her life, Mrs. Dawson was involved with issues of social justice, especially during her 40 years living in Cambridge. In 1961, Mrs. Dawson helped establish the Grassroots Housing Council in response to the lack of affordable apartments in the city.

During the turmoil of the 1960s, when urban renewal displaced Cambridge residents, Mrs. Dawson advocated for fair housing. She was appointed to the city's Civic Unity Committee, for which she served for about 10 years. She chaired the city's housing subcommittee for several years and fought the planned "inner belt route," which unsuccessfully sought to clear some neighborhoods to build the road.

"She found that distressing, especially because no one was making arrangements for where the people were going to go," said her daughter, Constance of Sherborn. "They were just displaced."

During the late 1980s, Mrs. Dawson and her husband moved to Marion, where they had a summer home. There, she pursued her passion for art, especially painting in oils, acrylics, and watercolors.

In the early 1990s, Mrs. Dawson began using collagraphy techniques for her artwork. A collagraph print is a collage technique.

Mrs. Dawson won many awards and exhibited at the Cambridge Art Association, Copley Society of Boston, and Marion Art Center until she was 81.

Relatives and friends remember the Halloween costumes Mrs. Dawson made when her children were young, which her daughter said were the "talk of the town for many years." One memorable costume was a headless horseman.

"Whatever the situation was, that was an opportunity to become creative," Dawson said. "She was a very positive person . . . and unbelievably creative."

Mrs. Dawson was a member of the Sippican Women's Club, which held college fund-raisers for students at Rochester Regional High School.

In the late 1990s, Mrs. Dawson moved to Sherborn and lived with her daughter and her family. She later became a devoted supporter of Barack Obama.

"I felt like her life was the embodiment of a 'Yes we can' attitude," Dawson said. "That was how she lived her life."

Besides art, Mrs. Dawson had an interest in science, particularly astronomy.

"She was absolutely engaged in life," Dawson said. "She had huge empathy for people and acted on it. She always thought about the larger world."

Kenneth Dawson died in 1989; their son, also named Kenneth, died in 2007. In addition to her daughter Constance, Mrs. Dawson leaves five grandchildren.

Funeral services have been held.