Rachel Mercer Burns, most recently of Hingham, died on May 15. She was 91. She was born Sept. 21, 1923 in Medford to Nathan and Edna Willoughby Mercer, and was one of six children. By the time she was four, the family moved from Medford back to Martha’s Vineyard.

Rae, as she liked to be called, graduated from Edgartown High School in 1941 before moving to Boston to attend Chandler Secretarial School. She married Bill Burns of Wollaston in her parents’ living room in Edgartown on March 1, 1943. They were married for 63 “outstandingly wonderful years.” They raised their three children in Wilmington, Mass., where they lived for more than 36 years before retiring to Centerville on Cape Cod in 1982.

Rae was the Wilmington town treasurer for seven years and was active in several organizations, including the United Methodist Church, Eastern Star and Quannapowitt Yacht Club, and served for a period of time as both a Cub Scout leader and a Girl Scout leader. She and Bill enjoyed many years of sailing, square dancing, and traveling, and both became avid golfers in their retirement years on the Cape.

Rae is survived by her two sons, William C. (Chuck) Burns Jr. of Lakewood, Calif. and Jack S. Burns and his wife, Marimar, of Portland, Ore.; daughter Dawne Burns and her husband Michael Breton of Charlestown, R.I.; six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, brother Stanley Mercer and his wife Marie of Chilmark, sister-in-law Irene Mercer of Michigan, and sister-in-law Judith Paul of Quincy.

Private services and interment at the Bourne National Cemetery on Cape Cod will be held later this summer.

For those who wish, donations may be made to the ALS Association, alsa.org.