Rita Emma Luckey of Duxbury died at home April 15 after a long battle with cancer. She was 81.

Born in Chicago, Ill., she grew up and was educated in Gary, Indiana, as the daughter of Frederick and Emma Matzdorf, German immigrants who had met in Gary. She married Leo J. Luckey, also of Gary.

His career in the U.S. Coast Guard took them across the country and back, from Virginia to California to Hawaii and eventually to Boston. Their final move brought them to Duxbury in 1962 when Leo was assigned to a Coast Guard communication station on the South River in Marshfield.

In 1963, Rita joined the staff of the Duxbury Clipper, first as a typesetter and later, because of her versatility, as a bookkeeper, office manager and production leader. Needing full-time work with full-time benefits, she left the paper in 1970 to become secretary to the elementary school principal.

In 1991, after 21 years she retired from the school department and, with a month’s leave under her belt, returned to the Clipper where she continued to wear multiple hats and worked, on a limited basis up through 2007.

She was a Girl Scout leader for many years and her talent as a dancer made her shine in the annual American Legion shows in the ‘60s and 70s. Her forte was tap, hula and jazz and for years she taught dancing, most recently at the Duxbury Senior Center. She began her battle with cancer in 1999 but continued to teach tap as late as the fall of 2008.

Mrs. Luckey leaves her husband, Leo, for whom she cared for many years after he suffered a stroke. She also leaves a son, Frederick Luckey of North Easton, N.Y.; three daughters, Nancy Mannett of Grey, Maine, Sandra Connolly of Boise, Idaho, and Patricia Moneyhun of Duxbury; a brother, Frederick Matzdorf of Crown Point, Ind.; seven grandchildren, one great-grandchild and several cousins from Germany.

A funeral service was held Saturday at the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church of Plymouth. Burial was in the Bourne National Cemetery.

Donations in Mrs. Luckey’s memory made be made to the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church at 384 Court St., Plymouth, MA 02360, or to the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Fund at 165 Cambridge St., Suite 600, Boston, MA 02114-2792