Kathleen Maria "Lena" Buffington, a retired real estate agent who was active in the state and national Republican Party, died of cancer Tuesday at her Tuscany-Canterbury home. She was 91.

Born Kathleen Maria Babylon on a farm in the Wakefield Valley near New Windsor, she was a 1933 graduate of New Windsor High School. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and a doctorate in political science from the Johns Hopkins University.

She taught school for several years at Polytechnic Institute and Western High schools and at the Roland Park Junior High School.

In the early 1970s, she became a licensed real estate agent and during her real estate career worked for Charles H. Steffey, O'Conor Piper and Flynn, Chase Fitzgerald and Co. Inc., Long & Foster and D.E. Hughes Realty Co. She belonged to the Baltimore Board of Realtors and was a life member of the Million Dollar Roundtable.

After the 1975 death of her husband, state Sen. J. Raymond Buffington Jr., a Baltimore Democrat, Mrs. Buffington entered Republican politics. In 1996, she was elected as a delegate to the Republican State Central Committee, where she remained active. Three times she was a delegate to the National Republican Convention.

"We could never count the number of elephant statues she had in her small condominium," said Bill Cassidy, a friend and co-worker. "But she had a lot of Democrat friends, too. She was a Republican in the Charles 'Mac' Mathias mode."

Mrs. Buffington was a member of Grace United Methodist Church, the English Speaking Union and the Hopkins Women's Republican Club.

Services will be held at 11 a.m. today at the Hartzler Funeral Home, 310 Church St., New Windsor.

Survivors include a brother, Graham Babylon of New Windsor.