Former Selectwoman and state Rep. Marie Parente has died. “Marie Parente was a trailblazer,” said friend and former Milford Selectman John Seaver, who served on the board after Parente was elected to the Statehouse. The lifelong Milford resident died Friday of natural causes after a brief illness, family members said. She was 91.

A dedicated public servant, Parente was the town’s first female member of the Board of Selectmen when elected in 1972. After nine years on the board, she became a state representative, a position she held for a quarter century. “I think she was so brilliant she could have done anything,” said Angela Brucato, her daughter. “She chose politics, and she chose to help people, and that’s what she did.”