It's hard to know what made community leader Mary Jane Armstrong more impossible to ignore — her no-nonsense attitude or her enormous signature hats.

Hired during Mayor Maynard Jackson's administration, Ms. Armstrong served as coordinator of Atlanta's neighborhood planning units, a network of two dozen community groups. Week after week, she sat in on late-night NPU meetings and encouraged ordinary people to sound off on development issues that affected their intown neighborhoods.

File photo (ENLARGE)

Once Mary Jane Armstrong's children were older, the divorced mother of seven went back to school while working full time.

When she retired in 1992, Atlanta's then-commissioner of planning and development, Leon Eplan, described her departure as "the loss of almost an icon."

"Even in moments when others in public office have demeaned the whole participation process," he said in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, "she stood by it."

She stood by it, despite its occasional frustrations, because she believed it was essential to listen to a chorus of opinions, no matter how cacophonous the sound.

"I'm the first to admit this is a terrible headache, for the city to allow so many more voices at the table," Ms. Armstrong said in the same article. "But for citizens, it's absolutely valuable."

Ms. Armstrong, 86, died of complications from heart disease Saturday at her Atlanta residence. The body was cremated. The memorial service will be 6 p.m. Thursday at H.M. Patterson & Son, Spring Hill.

Called "Rusty" in her younger days for her bright red hair, she grew up on Chicago's South Side in a large, Irish Catholic family.

She attended DePaul University but put her studies aside to rear her children.

Later, when they were older, the divorced mother of seven went back to school while working full time.

She earned a bachelor's degree and master's degree in urban planning from Georgia State University.

From her tiny office piled with maps and files, Ms. Armstrong lent a sympathetic ear to Atlantans across economic, social and racial lines. At the same time, she didn't suffer fools gladly.

"She worked to get the best solution for whatever the problem was, but she wouldn't sugar-coat it with what people wanted to hear," said her son Charles Armstrong of Birmingham.

One of her most notable stances, he said, was her opposition to the proposed Stone Mountain Freeway.

"She was not afraid to give her opinion, right or wrong, whether or not it was politically expedient," he said. "She was a liberal long before the word fell out of favor and continued to be and was proud of it."

He likened his mother to fellow hat-wearing feminist Bella Abzug.

At first, Ms. Armstrong started wearing headgear to protect her fair complexion. Soon, she was collecting hats at local shops and on her trips throughout Europe.

She spent her retirement years as a literacy and child advocacy volunteer. And she served as an irreverent role model for her granddaughters, jumping on the bed with them when they should have been fast asleep.

"She was the original women's libber in the best sense of the word," her son said. "She always felt like women had an active role to play in society and had definite things to contribute. Whether you were 45 or 75, she thought you needed to be out there and engaged to make that happen."

Survivors include four other sons, Timothy Armstrong of Jacksonville, John Armstrong II and Michael Armstrong, both of Atlanta, and Mark Armstrong of Baltimore; two daughters, Maureen Armstrong of Seattle and Mari Jayne Nicholas of Honolulu; a sister, Margaret Mullen, of Soldotna, Alaska; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.