Alexandra Lounsbery Weiss, who founded the Center with Paul in 1981, and who died of cancer in 2012, is sometimes referred to as one of the two "patron saints" of the Center for the continued imprint of her heart vision, material impact, and years of dedication. Much of the following is excerpted from her obituary, written by Paul at that time.

Alex is remembered for her warmth, generosity, and hard-working and compassionate involvement with life and with people. She had a deep spirituality, inspired early on by the person of Jesus, and expressed also in her many years of zen meditation practice, as well as in her love for her Indian teacher, Sant Ajaib Singh, who she first met in the 1970s and visited several times at his desert ashram in India.

As Alexandra Merson she lived for several years in Woodstock, New York in the late sixties, running her own clothing store. These years overlapped with the historic Woodstock concert which brought a flood of homeless and disoriented young people into Woodstock looking for “the scene,” and creating a bit of a social crisis.

Typical of her compassionate and proactive nature, Alexandra turned her kitchen into the hub of a social agency she named “Family,” enlisting the volunteer support of many in the town, including the phone company, to develop a network of response services. Today Family is a multi-million dollar social agency in Woodstock, New York that probably has no idea of Alexandra Merson.

Paul and Alex met in Bar Harbor in 1974. She was one of several people hired as he was leaving his position as Director of The Homestead Project, a group foster care facility for adolescents in Hancock County; and they were married that same year. They journeyed and studied widely with a growing family, and in June 1981, with the help of many friends in the community, Paul and Alexandra returned to launch The Whole Health Center, a non-profit holistic health and counseling center that was a cutting edge for a small New England town at that time.

As an administrator (and initial receptionist) of The Whole Health Center in its large downtown Bar Harbor facility, Alexandra also brought her organizational skills to bear in promoting a series of major conferences and events, bringing such presenters to eastern Maine as Dr. Bernie Siegel, the renowned cancer surgeon with a holistic approach to patient care. She also brought Ellen Bass, an author who had helped raise consciousness about the healing journey of incest survivors. These were the early days of bringing conscious attention to the extent, and to the psychological impact, of childhood incest and sexual abuse. Alexandra organized and facilitated what was surely one of the first support groups for incest survivors in the state of Maine.

Over the years Alexandra continued to facilitate many support groups for women, while studying and deepening her own practical experience with both psychological and emotional facilitation. At The Whole Health Center, and over her lifetime, she came to play a vital role in the community as a gifted counselor with individuals, couples, and groups. Her practice derived not from academic training, but from her natural gifts of insight and compassion, personal study, experience, and life-smarts. An indication of the respect she received as a counselor was the invitation from a seasoned group of therapists in the Boston area to commute down to Massachusetts monthly for many years to serve as the facilitator for their own support group.

In her later years, Alexandra settled in a home on the edge of Toddy Pond in East Orland, where she continued for many years, even throughout her terminal illness, to meet with individuals and groups, and was always most generous in making herself available to those who could little afford to pay. Not a few have expressed the feeling that she had saved their life.

Alexandra was in her heart of hearts an ecstatic and a child of God who wanted to serve God in others and who wanted the joy of his community on earth. That is a tender position for a heart to hold through a lifetime of hard work, dedication, hurts and disappointments, and just trying to do one’s best. And she modeled it for us. In her last years her quiet spirituality was characterized by a simple ability to greet both life and death matter-of-factly, open-eyed, and with equanimity. Her passing left a hole like a pebble disappearing into a pond whose ripples spread outward and outward.