Mary Lee Brookshire defied her doctor and ignored conventional wisdom by bringing her newborn daughter home from the hospital.

It was 1958. Mrs. Brookshire's daughter, Laura Brookshire of Fayetteville, was born with Down syndrome.

Family photo (ENLARGE)

Mary Lee Brookshire (right) enjoys her daughter Laura's guitar playing.

Mrs. Brookshire's doctor told her not to become attached to or even hold the baby, that her daughter would not thrive and should be placed in an institution right away, said her son, David Brookshire of Decatur.

Mrs. Brookshire shunned the physician's advice, reared her daughter at home and became one of Georgia's outstanding advocates for people with disabilities.

"She went very much against what was the common practice of the day," said Mary Yoder of Atlanta, executive director of the Atlanta Alliance on Developmental Disabilities.

"She made a difference because she modeled to other parents of children with Down syndrome that they could live and thrive in the community," Ms. Yoder said.

The memorial service for Mrs. Brookshire, 87, of Decatur is 4 p.m. Saturday at A.S. Turner & Sons. She died from complications of pancreatitis Tuesday at DeKalb Medical. The body was cremated.

Her sense of fairness and determined nature were at the root of Mrs. Brookshire's decision. Through no fault of her own Laura Brookshire was born with Down syndrome, Mrs. Brookshire believed, and it was only right that her daughter be reared with as normal a life as possible.

"She was the most strong-willed woman I've ever known," her son said.

Mrs. Brookshire was a tireless volunteer. "She was very active in having services immediately available in the community instead of being delivered out of institutions that were somewhere else, like Milledgeville," Ms. Yoder said. "She was very active in getting group homes started."

Mrs. Brookshire raised money, stuffed envelopes, lobbied legislators, led issues committees and served on association boards of directors at the national level. In 1976, Gov. George Busbee named her to the state's planning and advisory council for disability services. She visited facilities for the disabled all over the state.

When her daughter was born there was no such thing as group homes, and Mrs. Brookshire found many private services disgraceful, her son said. In her oversight inspections of private facilities, she found people with disabilities kept naked and tied to their beds.

"She was just outraged," Mr. Brookshire said. "She said we treat our pets better than this."

In Mrs. Brookshire's era, there were few volunteers working for the cause, Ms. Yoder said, because having a child with Down syndrome was often kept a family secret.

Mrs. Brookshire reared her family, worked for the disabled, enjoyed cooking and flower arranging, and her daughter flourished. Mr. Brookshire said his sister has the intelligence of a child of 4 but at 50 has built on a lifetime of experience. She lives in a group home, works, has an amazing memory and loves music, especially playing her guitar.

Mrs. Brookshire fought to make it so.

"She was very much a leader in the mental health civil rights movement before it was even recognized as a movement," Ms. Yoder said.

Other survivors include two grandsons; and a great-grandson.