In restaurants, at the post office or at the grocery store, there always seemed to be someone who was excited to run into the “Marden’s Lady.”

More than a decade after she stopped playing the effervescent, bargain-hunting character on TV ads for the Maine salvage store chain, Karmo Sanders was still being thanked by fans.

“To this day, she receives very lovely items in the mail from fans, wood burnings of her or needlepoint of something the Marden’s Lady said,” said her daughter, Hanna Sanders, of South Portland. “People would recognize her and want to talk to her. They were very drawn to her persona as the Marden’s Lady, but also her charisma as a joyful, bright person who was so actively engaged as she moved through the world. “

Sanders died at her home in Scarborough on Saturday at the age of 74. A Maine native, she had spent more than four decades in the arts as a playwright, performer, teacher and accidental TV star.

She and her husband, Jerry Sanders, helped create the musical review “Radical Radio,” which toured the East Coast in the 1990s. Sanders and her husband also wrote a Broadway-style musical called “Gold Rush Girls,” which played in Anchorage, Alaska, in 2012.

Her “Marden’s Lady” character, Birdie Googins, was on TV screens all over Maine for several years until Marden’s ended the ad campaign in 2013. Afterwards, Sanders did stand-up comedy as the beloved Googins.

Sanders wrote the play “Homer Bound,” which had a sold-out run at Good Theater in Portland in 2018. It was about a wacky shotgun wedding on a Maine island, complete with an onstage baby delivery.

Since 2017 she’d been teaching playwrighting and acting for non-majors at the University of Southern Maine, to students who were mostly too young to have seen her on TV. She inspired some of her students to consider becoming theater majors, said Sara Valentine, associate professor of theatre at USM.

“She was able to connect with the students because her energy was so joyful. She had a way of encouraging them to try things out of their comfort zone,” said Valentine. “She loved theater and she loved language and she brought that enthusiasm into the classroom. There was a lot of laughter coming from her classroom.”

Brian P. Allen, artistic director and co-founder of Good Theater, said Sanders brought a lot of the same traits and energy to the plays she wrote as she did in creating characters and performing. Her innate talent for humor was a big part of it, but she also had a great skill for making even silly or wacky characters relatable.

Her ‘Marden’s Lady’ was a prime example, Allen said. Birdie Googins was frenzied and funny, calling everyone “Deah” and bragging about all the “bahgains” she found. At the same time, she seemed very much like someone you’d meet anywhere in Maine, said Allen, who grew up working in his family’s blueberry business in Union.

“As outlandish as they were, her characters were also very real. Those of us who grew up in Maine know people like that,” said Allen.

Sanders was born in the Oxford County town of Norway. She met her husband, Jerry Sanders, while studying theater at Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma.  The couple pursued writing and theater careers while raising two daughters, Hanna and Jennywren, in Maine. Jerry died in 2013.

In 2014, as she was starting to perform and write again after her husband’s death, she told the Press Herald she thought it was important for people to stay positive and keep working toward whatever it is they’re passionate about.

“Sometimes I’m asked what advice I’d give kids in Maine, and I always say, ‘Go. Don’t stop. Pick up your dreams and go,’ ” Sanders said.

Visiting hours for Sanders will be Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. at Hobbs Funeral Home, on Cottage Road in South Portland.