WORCESTER, Mass. - Longtime activist and former Worcester City Councilor Barbara Haller died on Monday after being diagnosed with cancer in May. She was 73.

Haller represented District 4 on the council from 2002 to 2011 and had served on the licensing commission since 2016. 

At Tuesday night's city council meeting, memories were shared of her time at City Hall and her advocacy for those she represented. 

"She was a woman of leadership, a stalwart advocate, and she remained engaged up until the very last moments," Councilor Khrystian King said. "I think for many of us, that will be something that stays with us."

"Her mark is certainly left in the Main South area, and I think for a lot of us, we're going to miss her passion and commitment to the City of Worcester," Councilor Candy Mero-Carlson said.

"I truly believe the world is a better place because of Barbara Haller, especially Worcester," Councilor Kathleen Toomey said.

In a statement on Twitter, Mayor Joseph Petty called Haller a "fearless advocate for the Main South neighborhood."

Randy Feldman, a local attorney who worked with Haller on the effort to save the Notre Dame Church in Worcester, said she fought for what she believed in even if the odds weren't in her favor. 

"When I said to Barbara, 'Barbara I don't think we're going to be able to save Notre Dame Church', she said 'You never know, but anyway, it's the right thing to do,'" Feldman said. "You really learn about somebody's character not just when they're running for office or in office, but what they do when they're out of office. Barbara Haller did the same kind of things out of office as she did while she was in office."

According to a 2005 interview with the Worcester Women's Oral History Project, Haller became an activist at a young age, organizing as an Americorps VISTA volunteer in Chicago during the height of Urban Renewal programs and helping to run a collective farm school for delinquent youth in Arkansas.

She moved to Massachusetts in the mid-1970s and commuted to Worcester to study engineering. After becoming a local business owner in 1991, she took her first step into politics as a member of the Beacon-Brightly neighborhood revitalization group.

Haller's son Jacob announced her passing on Twitter, urging the Worcester City Council to continue her fight for affordable housing.