‘Oodles of knowledge and joy’: Friends mourn Mayra Alejandro
Mayra Alejandro, who served on the Merida English Library board and helped set up a local Democrats Abroad chapter, died Wednesday in her homeland of Puerto Rico after battling cancer.
Her family was by her side, according to an announcement by MEL.
In volunteering among Mérida’s international community, Mayra drew on her experience working at the United Nations in New York, where she also resided, the MEL statement indicated.
“She will be missed for her smile, sense of humor, and constant curiosity about the world around her,” the MEL announcement added.
“She was a good soul, genuinely interested in you. I loved her childlike awe of nature and the world,” said a friend, Nancy Hoag.
“She bore her illness with such fortitude and had such a positive outlook on life,” said Sean Hennessy, writing on his Facebook page. “All the team at Hennessy’s Irish Pub loved her. … Full of energy and outward optimism always.”
Friends also noted that Mayra fed hundreds of cats in her neighborhood and remembered her as a “kind woman with oodles of knowledge and joy.”
Lee Steele is the founding director of Mérida-based Roof Cat Media S de RL de CV and has published Yucatán Magazine and other titles since 2012. He was Hearst Connecticut’s Sunday Magazine creative director and worked in New York City for various magazine publishers, including Condé Nast and Primedia, for over 20 years.
