DOVER — The Sullivan sisters were Dover through and through; women about town who hit all the restaurants and never missed church services at St. Mary Church. They lived and died in this city.

And after this week, their legacy will live on in perpetuity, woven into the fabric of the city they cherished.

Nearly everything the sisters left behind, a total of $500,000 after their home and possessions were sold, was donated to St. Mary Academy and St. Thomas Aquinas High School. Each received $250,000, a sum St. Thomas Principal Kevin Collins described as their largest gift ever.

Ruth, Mary Melanie and Alicia Sullivan lived together at their home on Sixth Street since they had it built back in 1958 to house their mother Melanie, said Paul Boucher, a friend and executor of their estate.

The women were inseparable and led a lifestyle well ahead of their time — each worked and none of them ever married or had children. Ruth graduated from the University of New Hampshire at a time when few women did and then worked in government, while the other two worked at New England Telephone and Telegraph, where Alicia was a supervisor.

“To be a supervisor back then, you had to be a tough lady,” Boucher said.

They frequented restaurants, like Harvey’s and Strafford Farms, vacationed together in locales like Ireland, Florida and along the Maine Coast, and always attended church as a group.

“They were really three sisters about town,” Boucher said. “Every restaurant in town knew them.”

They were a unit, Boucher said, and even split all their bills three ways for the home they shared.

In April 2001, Ruth died at the age of 90. Five months later, Mary Melanie died, too, at 87. Alicia lived on, Boucher said, and decided to donate all the money the three amassed to the Catholic Church.

But after the sex abuse scandal broke, she changed her mind, Boucher.

“Originally the money was going to go to the bishop, but she didn’t want it to go to the bishop,” he said. “But she wanted it to stay in the Catholic faith.”

Alicia Sullivan rewrote her will about 10 years ago to give the money to St. Thomas and St. Mary Academy, two Catholic schools here. She never attended either of them, she just had a strong devotion to education, Boucher said.

Alicia died in October at 99 and her estate went to probate, where the gears slowly grinded until this week, when the money was released to the schools.

At St. Mary the money will be spent to upgrade their computer lab and create scholarships, while at St. Thomas, the $250,000 will be used to establish an endowment to pay for scholarships for needy students from Dover and Somersworth.

“We had no idea that Ms. Sullivan had even had St. Thomas Aquinas in her sights, but apparently she and her sisters were very committed to education,” said Collins, the principal there. “It’s remarkable.”