Catharine Corson MacLean died in the early morning of Saturday, July 28 at her summer residence in Clayton, N.Y. She was 90 years old.

Mrs. MacLean was born in Lockport, N.Y., on Oct. 28, 1916, the first child of Egbert Dexter and Katharine Weaver Corson.

After attending Lockport High School, she entered Bryn Mawr College, graduating in 1938 with a degree in history. The Corson family spent the summers beginning in the 1930s on Woranoco Island in the Thousand Islands at the St. Lawrence River. It was at the River where she met her future husband, Burton Allan MacLean of Murray Isle and Batavia, N.Y. After graduating from Bryn Mawr, Catharine returned to Lockport where she worked as country page editor for the Union-Sun and Journal Newspaper, her family's business.

She later became engaged and married Burton on Sept. 20, 1939. Mrs. MacLean spent her next decades raising eight children and helping her husband in his career in the ministry and education. They lived in Princeton, N.J., New Haven, Conn., Honolulu, Hawaii, Paris, France, and Pomfret, Conn.

As her children grew up, Mrs. MacLean devoted more time to her interests in gardening, the French language, literature, history, genealogy, and travel. Mrs. MacLean worked tirelessly for her alma mater, Bryn Mawr College. She ran the annual second-hand book sale in New Haven, and raised money for the alumni fund. She received an award from Bryn Mawr College for her volunteer work raising funds from alumnae living in France. Mrs. MacLean was also an active member of the Episcopal Church, serving as a member of the Altar Guild at St. Albans in Honolulu and as a member of the Social Service Committee of the American School in Paris. She was active in fundraising at Christ Church in Pomfret, Conn. During the years in Pomfret, she was also an active member of a French language Group, a mah-jongg group, and a sewing group.

In the summer she and her husband lived in their lakeside stone house on Tibbets Point in Cape Vincent, N.Y., which she loved to share with her grandchildren. Since 2000, she and her husband spent summers in Clayton, N.Y., closer to the summer homes of two of their sons where they could visit with greater frequency their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She loved all children and greatly enjoyed each succeeding generation. She spent the last day of her life playing with some of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and swimming with them in the St. Lawrence River.

Survivors include her husband of 68 years, the Rev. Burton Allan MacLean; brother Peter Corson of West Palm Beach, Fla.; sister Carolyn Corson Bell of St. Simon's, Ga.; and eight children, Burton A. MacLean Jr. of Haverford, Pa., and Wolfe Island, Ontario, Katharine MacLean Crane of Chevy Chase, Md., and Belmont, Vt.; John Chalmers MacLean of Ashfield and Club Island, N.Y., Mary D. MacLean of Pomfret, Conn., Thomas C. Maclean of Frankfort, Ky., Peter Charles MacLean of Oak Bluffs, Henry Phelps MacLean of Milton and Robert Sydney MacLean of Wellfleet; 15 grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.

There will also be a memorial service for Mrs. MacLean this autumn in Pomfret, Conn.