Dorcas Maranich -- her friends and family called her Doris -- tended to arrive in places ahead of others.

She settled in Alaska seven years before it became the 49th state. She took up the task of making a stained-glass window when others were only beginning to dabble in the craft. Even in her final years, she was winning awards for photography.

If ever a hobbyist had a gift, said her son, Michael Filicko, it was his mom.

"I guess you could say she was born with a gift, and then she took lessons and worked very hard at honing her gift," Mr. Filicko said.

Mrs. Maranich, a native of the Monongahela Valley whose last local home was in Monessen, died Aug. 28 in Palm Beach, Fla. She was 82.

Michael Filicko said his mother's first marriage, which ended in divorce 35 years ago, took her to Alaska, where she and her new husband shared a basement apartment overlooking a bay in Ketchikan. There was no electricity. The family relied on oil lamps.

"When she and my dad moved up there, if you were willing to work hard, you could make a living," Mr. Filicko said.

While her husband worked a jackhammer building roads, Mrs. Maranich picked up a vintage Argus camera and a light meter and began experimenting with photography. It was the first in what would become a series of hobbies that would betray surprising gifts.

The family returned to Western Pennsylvania after Michael became seriously ill. They wanted to be near family as well as Children's Hospital.

Over the years she would focus on cake decorating, needlework and, ultimately, stained glass.

A friend died and she wanted to build a memorial to her.

"She had never done stained glass before in her life. She started taking lessons and she knew how she had an innate ability for crafts," Mr. Filicko said.

The window, showing a dove of peace holding an olive branch, is still aloft in the casement at Full Gospel Church on Route 51 in Belle Vernon. It was one of three churches she attended.

Mrs. Maranich was born Dorcas Trembach on April 5, 1928, in Pricedale, Westmoreland County, a daughter of the late Peter and Mary Trembach.

In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her husband, John Maranich.

Along with her son, who resides in Milton, Del., she is survived by two daughters, Janet Montelongo of West Palm Beach, Fla., and Alice Reid of Atlanta; a brother, Walter Trembach of Belle Vernon, and sisters Mary Hostenske of Columbus, Ohio and Martha Petronko of Latrobe.

Friends will be received from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. today at the Rhome Funeral Home, Monessen, where services will be held at 11 a.m. Friday. Interment will follow at Belle Vernon Cemetery.

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