Maria M. Cumming, a retired Loyola University Maryland professor who never lost her affection for her native Puerto Rico, died March 20 from complications of a stroke at Stella Maris Hospice.

The Timonium resident was 86.

Maria Mercedes Lloveras was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the daughter of Pablo Lloveras, a businessman, and Mercedes Lloveras, a homemaker.

After graduating from Academia del Perpetuo in San Juan, she obtained a bachelor’s degree in foreign languages from Barry University in Miami, Fla., in 1952. She then returned to her native city, where she taught school.

Her future husband, Allen Ross Cumming, was serving in the Canadian Navy when his ship docked in Puerto Rico. The two met when she attended a dance aboard the vessel. They exchanged letters and decided they would attend the University of California-Berkeley to pursue master’s degrees after he completed his naval service.

She obtained a master’s degree in 1957 in foreign languages, and her husband received a master’s degree in electrical engineering. They married in 1958.

The couple settled in upstate New York, where she taught school. They later moved to Lynchburg, Va., and she taught at Lynchburg College.

In 1972, they moved to the Campus Hills neighborhood in Towson. From 1973 to 1975, Mrs. Cumming was a member of the foreign language faculty at Goucher College. Then, from 1976 until her retirement in 1996, she taught Spanish at Loyola University Maryland.

She and her husband later moved to Towson’s Chatterleigh neighborhood, and for the last several years they were residents of Mercy Ridge Retirement Community in Timonium.

A devout Roman Catholic, Mrs. Cumming was a member of Immaculate Conception in Towson and Immaculate Heart of Mary in Baynesville while living at Mercy Ridge.

Mrs. Cumming and her family visited Puerto Rico during summers, family members said.

“She remained very devoted to Puerto Rico, and after Hurricane Maria raised more than $10,000 in relief money from residents of Mercy Ridge,” said a daughter, Isabel Mercedes Cumming of Federal Hill.

“She was devoted to her family, faith and friends,” Ms. Cumming said.

A memorial Mass will be offered at 1:30 p.m. today in the chapel at Stella Maris, 2300 Dulaney Valley Road, Timonium.

In addition to her husband of 59 years, a retired Westinghouse Electric Corp. electrical engineer, and her daughter, Mrs. Cumming is survived by a son, Donald P. Cumming of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; another daughter, Maria Rose Cumming of Towson; and eight grandchildren.

—?Frederick N. Rasmussen