Notwithstanding Mary Hulton Phillips' many attributes — "generosity," "courage," "caring" — she was a great joke teller, friends say.

"Iremember watching her tell jokes and people laughing hysterically," said friend Gail Paserba. "She was a very special person."

Phillips, 88, died Monday night in her Butler Township home.

A board member or contributor to almost every charity or nonprofit organization in Butler County, Phillips was considered a county leader and "a go-getter" as one friend calls her.

Paserba, who met Phillips through the General Federation of Women's Clubs, said Tuesday it was a "sad day for the Butler community.

"People have no idea about all the great things Mary did for this community," she said.

Lisa Konesni, who served with Phillips on the Butler Area Public Library board, said when she joined the library in the early 1990s, Phillips was sitting on at least 12 boards of directors and was involved in many more organizations.

"That's the type of person she was," Konesni said. "Mary was passionate about this community."

Mary and her husband, Donald C. Phillips, whom she married in 1944, spent their lives trying to make the county a better place, said Anabel Brunermer.

Brunermer and Phillips became friends while working on the March of Dimes campaigns when the organization benefitted polio victims and vaccine research.

"Mary was a very great person, and I will miss her terribly," Brunermer said. "She was always there for you. People were drawn to her. She would light up the room.

"I have lost a very good friend," she said.

Phillips also had memberships in the Butler Women's Club, the United Way of Butler County and the Butler County Historical Society. She worked with the Butler County Blind Association; Butler Memorial Hospital, where she volunteered for 62 years; the Butler County Chamber of Commerce, the Butler County Endowment Fund and many more organizations.

She was treasurer of the North Street Christian Church for 15 years and was a deaconess and assistant treasurer from 1997 to 2003.

"Whatever she did, she did whole heartedly," said Bill Lehnerd, president of the Butler County Symphony.

Phillips was at the last concert at Christmas, Lehnerd said, and she had supported the symphony since the 1960s.

Doris Rose, a long-time former member of the Butler County Community College's board of trustees, said Phillips was "extremely generous."

Rose, whose husband, Gail Rose, helped found the community college in the early 1960s, worked closely with Phillips at the college.

Bill Speidel, BC3's vice president, and Nick Neupauer, the college's president, both said Phillips cannot be replaced.

"Not only was she supportive when I became president, but she has been so supportive of my wife, Tammy, so kind and so warm," Neupauer said.

Speidel, who worked with Phillips for 14 years on the college's foundation board, is another friend who remembers Phillips' humor and bright personality.

"It would always be Mary who, if things were getting tense during a meeting, would tell a joke and break that tension," he said.

Besides her volunteer and leadership work, Phillips was also an avid collector of Chinese art. In 2004, she opened the Maridon Museum at 322 N. McKean St. to house her 800-piece collection of carved Chinese jade, carved Chinese and Japanese ivories and Meissen porcelain figures.

Phillips combined her first name and her late husband's first name, coming up with Maridon for the museum, which has become perhaps her ultimate gift to the community, said Butler Mayor Maggie Stock.

Paserba said Phillips bought her first jade piece, the one featured as the symbol of the museum, a small female figure, at a GFWC's Intermediate League Antique Show, an annual fundraiser "a long time ago."

Time and again friends referred to the "gift of the Maridon," which draws tourists to the community she so loved and nurtured, Butler County.

"Mary Phillips contributed to the richness of Butler County. She had friends all over the world, and she brought beauty and the exotic to the county," Rose said.