Olive Louise (McNamara) Seaman, age 91, passed away from complications of Poliomyelitis on March 17, 2019. She was born on February 7, 1928, at Bridgeport Hospital to Paul McNamara and Susan (Cavanaugh) McNamara. She was brought home to Newtown, where she spent her early years.

They moved to Bethel in 1931, where she attended Bethel public schools. She graduated Bethel High School in 1945 and then attended Danbury Teachers College.

About this time, she met her future husband, William J. Seaman, and they were married on May 1, 1948.

In 1949, while expecting her second child, she contracted polio.

She came back home to Newtown in the early 1950s, where a new house was built on her family’s property on Hanover Road.

She became involved in the local parish, St Rose of Lima, teaching religious education until the new school at St Rose was opened in the late 1950s. She continued serving various functions for the parish through the 1970s, including being treasurer of the Rosary Society, working office machines for the school convent and the church, and running the car raffle booth at the annual carnival.

She was an active member of the Democratic Women’s Club and the Democratic Town Committee for many years and served as a Registrar of Voters.

She became the first woman elected to the position of Tax Collector and only the second Democrat to gain that post in Newtown.

She later worked as a bookkeeper for Rabbi Jerome Molino at the United Jewish Center in Danbury. Later still, she volunteered in the Records Department at Danbury Hospital.

As busy as all this was, she raised five children and also worked on the local school bus referendum, was often a chairman for the local March of Dimes for Polio, and acted as a co-chairman for the Mother’s March on Polio.

Despite her disabilities, she drove herself and her family on many vacations, having visited all 48 contiguous states over the course of several decades.

She is predeceased by her husband, William J. Seaman, Sr; and is survived by her five children, Paul, Mark, Lynn, Bridget, and William, Jr, and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Calling hours are Friday, March 22, from 5 to 8 pm, and the funeral will be Saturday, March 23, 10 am, both at Honan Funeral Home, 58 Main Street, Newtown.