For 71 years, Fitchburg's Lehto did whatever was needed to keep the Stratton Players moving forward, helping to mount productions staged for the public in the Stratton Playhouse on Wallace Avenue.

She didn't do costumes or props, but she acted in well over 100 plays, directed a couple of dozen more, sat on Stratton's board of directors, served as chairman of the group, raised funds, took tickets -- virtually anything the theater required.

Lehto stayed involved right up to this season, making plans to coordinate publicity for the group's March show before illness slowed her down recently.

She died Sunday night at HealthAlliance The Highlands, at the age of 89.

Local theater enthusiasts say they will remember Miriam Lehto as one of the true giants in the region's arts community.

"She was the grande dame of Fitchburg arts," Stratton Players Chairman Janet Cragin said. "She's right up there with (the late arts supporter) Fay Crocker. Her longevity, her enthusiasm -- they just don't make them like Miriam anymore."

Lehto was literally a grand dame, as well; the Finnish government had named her that nation's equivalent of a dame, and the Finnish Council of New York had given her its White Rose award for service to the nation.

Lehto had other affiliations and interests besides theater.

The lifelong Fitchburg resident and mother of two was active in Finnish organizations, serving as treasurer of the Finnish Center at Saima Park.

She worked many years as a secretary for the Massachusetts Mental Health Association and was a member and treasurer of the Fitchburg Women's Club.

But friends say it was the arts that defined her, and that gave her many of her greatest joys.

Cragin, who joined the Stratton Players in 1962, said Lehto and many of her peers saw the development of community theater as a way to lift the region's cultural standing.

"There was something about the intimacy about that (Wallace Avenue) building and having your own theater that really appealed to her," Cragin said. "What Fitchburg had back then were people who had an opportunity to develop the arts. Eleanor Norcross did it for the (Fitchburg Art) museum, and Fay Crocker and Miriam did it for the theater. To them, it was like bringing a little bit of New York or Boston to Fitchburg."

While Lehto often played lead roles early in her career, fellow actress Anne Beauchemin, who began acting in the 1930s, said she'll always remember the way Lehto played lead characters' mothers.

"Miriam was the actress who portrayed mothers like no one else, before or since," Beauchemin said. "She was in a play called 'I Remember Mama' and she was in 'Death of a Salesman,' playing the mother of a grown son. She had something -- something within. She had two sons, but I don't think that had anything to do with her performances. It was just something within her that not everybody has."

The Stratton Players is one of the oldest community theater troupes in the United States. It has survived wars, economic busts and booms and modern-day competition for viewer attention and funds.

Beachemin said Lehto, as much as anybody over the past 50 years, was responsible for keeping the The Stratton Players alive.

After Martha Daly, a director and guiding force for the troupe, left in the 1950s, the troupe needed direction -- figuratively as well as literally. Lehto stepped in.

"She was very important," Beauchemin said. "I had maintained over the years that, after Martha Daly, she was the person who kept the organization going."