Euterpe Dukakis, 99; Teacher and Mother of Presidential Candidate

Euterpe Dukakis, 99, a teacher and the mother of Democratic presidential nominee and former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, died Wednesday.

Euterpe Boukis Dukakis, who was named for one of the nine muses in Greek mythology, was born in northern Greece and immigrated to the United States in 1913 with her parents and three sisters. They joined her two brothers, who were in Haverhill, Mass. During the summers, she worked in a local shoe factory with her brothers, Michael Dukakis said.

She attended Winter Street Elementary School in Haverhill, where Principal Stanley Gray helped her develop a passion for education. She later honored Gray by giving her son Michael the middle name Stanley.

She attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, then became a teacher in Ashland, N.H., and Amesbury, Mass. She married Dr. Panos Dukakis in 1929 and left teaching until World War II, when she returned to the classroom until the war’s end to help ease a teacher shortage.

Dukakis was an avid baker known as the “cookie lady” in their Brookline neighborhood, her son recalled. She was involved in various community organizations, including the League of Women Voters.