Maria Lucena, 91, of Brentwood, retired translator and church secretary

Maria Lucena left a difficult childhood in Puerto Rico but not her standards, committing every spare dollar toward her children’s success and the less fortunate, her family said.

Many of her pleasures were free, her loved ones said. She’d stop at any body of water to dip her feet — whether it was a cold Alaskan river or just a trickle spotted from the car — saying it was rejuvenating. As midnight approached on New Year’s Eve, the family would leave parties to go home so she could  "conduct" with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and its cannons to bring in the new year. Even as dementia set in, she wielded her dry humor, for example, resisting living with her daughter but noting that her dog “was a draw.”

“Her marriage, her children and creating this life for us that was a complete 180 from what she had just proved to her that her faith worked, that her brain and her grit worked for her,” said daughter Liz Lucena-Moore of Colchester, Vermont. “When my mom saw us thriving every day, it was like ‘I made it.’ ”

Lucena, a longtime Brentwood resident and mother of three, died April 10 at 91. The retired translator and church secretary had declined due to dementia.

She grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico’s capital. When Lucena was young, her mother died of pneumonia and she began living with her father, stepmother and several half siblings, those who knew her said. 

With a high IQ score around 150, Lucena was 16 when her father took her to New York City and enrolled her in New York University’s premed  courses, those who knew her said. But she returned  to Puerto Rico two years later when her father could no longer pay.

Lucena cut almost all ties with her family when she returned to the Big Apple by herself at age 20. She was welcomed by childhood friend Flor Gaona, the “sister of her heart,”  and got a job as an assistant at a small Fifth Avenue ad agency where Gaona worked.

The two friends and their boyfriends danced the mambo and cha-cha in clubs and watched Tito Puente and Xavier Cugat perform at places like the Palladium, recalled Gaona, who used to walk to grade school with Lucena in San Juan. 

When it was hot inside, they hung out with friends on building rooftops, dancing and singing.  “When you can’t afford to go to the beach, you go to the rooftop,” Gaona said.

In 1953, Maria married a man she first met at NYU, Xavier Lucena, another Puerto Rican who had a rough childhood and held the same values, her loved ones said.

Ten years later, they moved to Brentwood. Xavier worked as an IRS accountant and Maria held various jobs over the decades, including as a translator for Islip Town and the Academy of St. Joseph. 

The couple didn’t go on vacation and rarely spent on themselves but saved for their children’s Catholic schools, gymnastics competitions, piano and dance lessons, sports gear and college, said daughter Amy Lucena of Santa Monica, California. It was a household of TV baseball watching, and living room dances and performances, she said, especially from "West Side Story" — a favorite musical — with their own Maria singing “I like to be in America.”

 On the flip side, Lucena was strict on manners and her children giving their best efforts, her daughters said. They didn’t answer the phone with “hi” — it was “Hello, the Lucena residence.” If one of her children or their friends voiced hope for good grades, Lucena would ask “did you study?” If the answer was no, she’d say “the only time you get to say ‘I hope I did well’ is when you did your best.” 

Lucena lived her faith, her family said. At St. Luke’s Church in Brentwood, where she worked part time, she counseled immigrants and asked parishioners to donate if someone needed basics. She kept in touch with the less fortunate, inviting them for dinner and swims in the above-ground pool, where they could grab grapes that her husband had purposefully planted along the fence as snacks. 

“She had a very clear sense of you try your hardest because that’s how you thank God for the gifts you’ve been given,” Lucena-Moore said.

 After her husband, son Xavier and her son-in-law died of illnesses before reaching old age, Lucena questioned God’s blueprint but she never lost her appreciation of life, her family said. 

As dementia took hold, she knew it was 7 p.m. and dinner time when "Jeopardy" came on; 11 p.m. and bedtime when "King of Queens" came on; and time to say “Today’s a good day. I woke up” when the sun was up, Lucena-Moore said. She watched all the DVDs of her favorite singer, Andrea Bocelli, at times thinking she was at his concerts and remarking on the comfy seats.  

 While clearing out the Brentwood house, Amy Lucena, who had gone to UCLA on a full gymnastics scholarship, discovered her mother had kept her many trophies. She was going to ditch the discolored medals, but when she turned them over, she saw that her mother had typed the date, score, contest and location on each ribbon.

“I was like ‘I cannot throw these away,’ ” Amy Lucena said. “I hugged them to my chest.” 

A Mass will be celebrated 11 a.m. Saturday at St. Luke’s Roman Catholic Church in Brentwood. The wake will be held 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday at the Michael J. Grant Funeral Home in Brentwood. Maria Lucena was cremated. Donations may be made to the Academy of St. Joseph, the Humane Society and BAYADA Hospice in Vermont.