On an August evening in 2015, Barbara Scannell accepted condolences from friends during the wake for her son David, who had died after lingering in a coma for 19 years, ever since he was struck by a drunk driver while riding his bicycle. And in the funeral home parking lot afterward, she hugged the driver who had injured her son, speaking words of kindness to put his mind at ease.

Offering forgiveness that almost no one could summon under such circumstances drew attention and admiration, but few at the wake knew that Mrs. Scannell was exhibiting more than just emotional strength.

That morning, she had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Doctors didn’t want her to leave the hospital, but she rose to the challenge, as she had throughout her life. There was a hairdresser’s appointment ahead, a stop back at her house, and a long line of mourners to comfort.

“She went to the wake and greeted every single person with this unbelievable grace, and nobody was the wiser that this had happened,’’ said her daughter, Lisa Stieb of Weymouth. “Her life was not easy, and life was not kind to her, but she was very kind to life and she took care of everybody.’’

Mrs. Scannell, who served on the Weymouth Board of Selectmen in the late 1970s and early ’80s, and ran Barbara’s Dress Shop for nearly 50 years while raising eight children, died in her South Weymouth home Dec. 4 of complications from a stroke. She was 89.

Family lore has it that Mrs. Scannell and her brother, Paul, brought their little sister to a neighbor’s house so they could stay outside and climb a tree during the Hurricane of 1938. Daring since childhood, she sought a sweeping view of the world while traveling extensively in her hometown. “She saw the world without leaving her front door,’’ said her son Chris of Marblehead.

Mrs. Scannell “was born just a stone’s throw from this very gathering,’’ her son Jeff of Weymouth said in a eulogy last month in St. Francis Xavier Church in South Weymouth.

She was born on All Saints Day and was baptized at St. Francis Xavier, as were her eight children. She went to the funerals of two of her sons in the same church, which is walking distance from her home, and died on the day when the feast of St. Barbara is celebrated.

“A small arc contained so much of my mother’s life, and in turn so much of her children’s and grandchildren’s lives,’’ said Jeff, who added in an interview that while the arc was small, it was never limiting.

With money borrowed from a relative, Mrs. Scannell bought a dress shop in South Weymouth’s Columbian Square and ran it for 48 years, only closing the store when she became the full-time caregiver for David. She also was the first woman elected to the town’s Board of Selectmen, her family said, and had served as vice chairwoman.

In addition, she launched an annual town tradition decades ago of getting teenagers to paint shop windows for Halloween.

After Paul, her firstborn, died in 1994 after a Nevada helicopter accident that happened when he was a heli-skiing guide, she ran a memorial golf tournament for years to raise money for those who had suffered spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries.

“You couldn’t imagine that she could continue and continue and continue,’’ Lisa said. “And yet she was always like that. She gave all the time.’’

The oldest of three children, Barbara Leary was born in South Weymouth and grew up in homes that were a short stroll from the house where she raised her children.

“We don’t move around much, if you know what I mean,’’ she said in a 2007 interview for the obituary of her brother Paul Leary, who had been the first president of the Town Council, when it changed from being a Board of Selectmen.

“We’re Weymouth people for sure,’’ she added, recalling a childhood spent building forts in nearby woods. “We just had a wonderful, wonderful life.’’

Her father, John Leary, sold furniture and was the youngest of 10. “I think she had 42 first cousins,’’ Jeff said. “As she said, ‘When you were growing up you couldn’t do anything wrong because somebody would see you – your uncle or your aunt or your cousins.’’’

For a time, Mrs. Scannell’s mother, the former Lezette White, helped her run Barbara’s Dress Shop. Creative by nature, Mrs. Scannell “would decorate the windows and they were a big attraction in Columbian Square,’’ Lisa said. “She had that artistic eye and had this impeccable penmanship that was just amazing. I have a poem she wrote me for my birthday and my friends thought it was printed by Hallmark because the penmanship was so good and the poem was so lovely.’’

In 1952, Barbara Leary married David H. Scannell, whom she had met at Nantasket Beach and who ran cleaning companies. He died in 2001.

Due partly to her years caring for her son when he was at home and in a coma, Mrs. Scannell kept hours that were ideal for those in need of advice at, say, midnight.

“I would call my mother when I went on late night walks and she was always up,’’ Chris said. “She was just fluently entertaining. It was absolutely effortless.’’

His brother Tim of San Antonio added that “she had this incredible ability to give wisdom, and she was a great listener. And she just had an amazing sense of humor and a great laugh. That’s the thing I think I cherish most.’’

In addition to her daughter, Lisa, and her sons Chris, Jeff, and Tim, Mrs. Scannell leaves two other sons, Jay and Peter, both of Weymouth; and 10 grandchildren.

“She had this amazing ability to put things in perspective,’’ Tim said. “She’d say, ‘No matter what you have going on that’s bad, somebody always has it worse.’ ’’

Mrs. Scannell kept that sense of perspective even when it was tested by the deaths of her sons Paul and David, and by the nearly two decades David was in a coma. “It was a pain for her that never went away, but it didn’t define her. She still lived. She still was engaged,’’ Jeff said.

She even opened her home to Daniel Danais, who was driving drunk when he struck David in 1996.

Chris, who helped set up their first meeting, in 2002, recalled that his mother “always realized that any one of us could screw up, and she said one thing to him: ‘Dan, never, ever pity yourself. If you want to honor me and David, don’t waste your life.’ ’’

Bryan Marquard can be reached at bryan.marquard@globe.com.