LEBANON — Martha Solow exemplified the adage: “Democracy is not a spectator sport.”

Solow’s civic engagement on local, state and national levels spanned not years, but decades. She served on the Hanover Planning Commission, was the first woman elected to the Hanover Selectboard, and also served as a state representative, and held positions with the League of Women Voters and grassroots organizations such as Common Cause and the EarthRight Institute.

Just months before her death at age 91 in February, she was still active in her civic role, participating in a get-out-the-vote campaign ahead of last November’s election.

“I think she wrote more than 100 letters for that campaign to get people to vote,” said her daughter, Barbara Solow, who lives in Florence, Mass. “She still cared.”

Her mother, a “proud Democrat,” never lost faith in the country’s democratic institutions and form of government, Barbara said. When election results were not what she hoped for, her reaction was never what seems prevalent today: anger and despair.

“She would always be encouraging,” Barbara said. “I remember a previous election loss for Democrats and she told us to ‘look around your community and be grateful.’ She was really a small d, Democrat. She believed in democracy and being active in one’s community. Our mother was an inspiration to her daughters in this way and she continued to encourage us not to give up.”

Solow, who died in Massachusetts following a brief illness, was born and raised in Brookline, Mass., with an older sister, Amelia, and younger brother, Michael. Her father, I. Henry Stern, was the first of a family of Russian immigrants to be born in the U.S. He rose to the rank of colonel in the Army and served during World War II.

Solow graduated from Wellesley College in 1954. Her father introduced her to her husband, Charles, a Harvard student. The two men became acquainted through the Boy Scouts.

The family came to live on Rayton Road in Hanover in the mid-1960s when Charles, a physician, began working at Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital.

 Barbara Solow and Marjorie Moorhead, the two oldest of the Solows’ three daughters, said their mother’s civic involvement was likely influenced by her upbringing.

“My grandfather used to say, ‘Leave a place a little better than you found it,’ ” Moorhead said.

As the women’s movement gained momentum in the 1970s, Moorhead said her mother saw an opportunity to get involved and found her niche.

“She was a young mom and she loved being a mother to her three daughters, but when it came time to seek a world of her own, I think she really did plug in to these civic duty areas,” Moorhead said. “She felt strongly about stewardship for the environment, open government and a duty to participate and try to make things better.”

In a 1980s edition of New Hampshire Notables, Solow’s numerous positions on boards, commissions, councils and more were listed. She was elected to the Hanover Selectboard in the early 1970s and also served on the Hanover Health Council, Hanover Conservation Commission, the Howe Library Board, Granite State Public Radio and the New Hampshire Constitutional Convention in 1984.

“There were different opportunities for women to get involved by the time we came to Hanover and she met that moment,” Barbara said. “She liked being useful and loved being able to do things her way. Those are great characteristics to have in a mom.”

Solow’s nephew, Andrew Revkin, recalled the passion his aunt had for political and environmental causes.

“I remember her commitment to building a better society,” said Revkin, a journalist who lives in Maine. “She led by example when it came to political activism. She always had a smile on her face, but was also a super-determined person. There was a lot of passion behind that smile.”

In 1980, Solow was chosen as the director of the Vermont-New Hampshire district of Common Cause, a grassroots organization started in the early 1970s. The national group pushed for an end to the Vietnam War and called for a more accountable and inclusive government. Solow was chosen from among 150 candidates in a nationwide search. She summed up her views in a 1981 article in the Valley News.

“It has always been an issue that the government operates in the open; that in a democracy, people believe that the government is not run by the elite for the elite but it has the welfare of the entire community in mind,” Solow told the paper.

Solow was someone Judith Kaufmann, a former chairwoman of the Sullivan County Democrats, said she admired and looked up to as a role model not only for all she did but for her outlook on life

“She was small in stature, but her presence was very large,” Kaufmann, of Cornish, said. “I was never surprised to see her at a dance, a movie, a concert or political events. I remember seeing her at a dance when she was getting older and she just had this life energy. Not only was she looking at how to keep our community together by running for political office, but she was also enjoying life. She had such a spirit for life.”

Solow was not solely defined by her role in the arena of public service. She was a skiing instructor for the Ford Sayre program, sang and played the guitar, planted gardens and wrote poetry. She loved spending time outdoors, including activities that ranged from skiing and skating to hiking, swimming and kayaking, and passed that passion on to her children.

“We skied, we skated, we swam, we did Girl Scouts, we hiked,” Moorhead said. “They took us on two big trips out west where we hiked in the Tetons. She was a great mom and made sure we got to do what we liked and wanted to do.”

Though their parents divorced — Charles died in 2021 — they remained close friends to the benefit of their daughters.

“We were very lucky in both parents and to have a mother who cared deeply about what we were doing and loved to share her joys with us,” Barbara said.

Protecting and improving the environment was another cause that stirred Solow’s passion.

She served on the New Hampshire Environmental Coalition, the Upper Valley Sierra Club and joined EarthRight Institute, an Upper Valley organization started in 1989, focusing on renewable energy, solid waste issues, ecological transportation and recycling.

Jim Schley, of South Strafford, said he and other members brought experience in grassroots organizing, but relied on Solow with her knowledge of how local, regional and state agencies and government functioned.

“Martha was much more seasoned, more aware of where the levers of influence were, and she was a determined yet gentle mentor,” Schley said in an email.

The nonprofit, located in the Gates-Briggs building in White River Junction, published environmental manuals and fact sheets, conducted workshops and forum on conservation issues, and answered questions from the public. EarthRight helped start several recycling and reuse programs in the Upper Valley and produced a book on how towns could become more energy efficient.

“It was a resource for how one could live environmentally responsibly,” Moorhead said.

Bob Walker, one of the founders of EarthRight, which disbanded in the mid-1990s, said Solow, who became the organization’s executive director in 1991, was a great organizer and that helped her accomplish a lot for EarthRight and wherever she lent her talents.

“She was very skilled and made a big difference with environmental groups in the Upper Valley,” Walker said. “Martha was a dynamic woman who did a lot of good things in her life.”

Patrick O'Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.