Mary Elizabeth Corddry

Mary Elizabeth Corddry, age 93, of Churchville, MD passed away peacefully on December 24, 2018 at Senator Bob Hooper House in Forest Hill, MD. Mrs. Corddry is survived by two sons, George H. Corddry III (wife Christa Fehrer) of Florence, MT and James H. Corddry (wife Kim Corddry) of Fairview Beach, VA; two daughters, Mary C. Corddry (husband Edward Hellen) of Hampstead and Ellen J. Corddry (husband Larry Langan) of Columbia; two granddaughters, Lea Corddry of Ft. Lauderdale, FL and Candace Werner of Centerville; two grandsons, Glenn and Patrick Langan of Baltimore City; and great grandson, Brooks Werner. She was preceded in death by her son, David L. Corddry.

Those who desire may make contributions to the Deer Creek Friends Meetinghouse in Darlington, MD, the Harford Land Trust, or a hospice of your choice.

Mary was a lifelong Marylander, born and raised in Harford County by Henry and Ola (Francis) Umbarger. She graduated from Hood College in 1946. Her elective courses in music and art appreciation and participation in the modern dance club began her lifelong enjoyment of the arts. After college, she took courses from the Martha Graham modern dance company in New York City and drove to Mexico with a friend and a chaperone. In 1947 she entered the work world as Assistant Editor of The Land, a quarterly magazine published by the Friends of the Land, a national non-profit society dedicated to “the conservation of the soil, rain, and land.” She wrote “Eastern Pioneers – How ‘The Down-Yonders’ Came To Harford,” including her father’s and mother’s families, who migrated from the mountains of North Carolina and Virginia to the rich farmlands of Harford County in the early 1900’s. This was republished as a monograph by Russell and Kate Lord in 1957 and recently reprinted by the Harford County Historical Society.

Mary married George H. Corddry, Jr, then principal of Aberdeen High School, in 1950. They had three children – Mary, George III, and Ellen - before moving to Salisbury in 1957, when her husband became principal of Wicomico Senior High School. The move was followed by the birth of two more children – David and James.

Mary restarted her career as a writer in 1966 with the Delmarva Advisory Council, a three-state, economic development, quasi-governmental agency. She wrote tourism brochures and a monthly newsletter. That led to a friendship with the late Jim Nelson of Aspen Institute in Wye Mills, who recommended her for the position of Eastern Shore Correspondent for the Baltimore Sun in 1969. She wrote in reflections on her life, “This was a watershed period for women, a period when this woman at least felt compelled by lifelong conditioning to produce sit-down dinners for seven every evening no matter what the challenge of deadlines and breaking stories.” For 17 years, she covered the Eastern Shore for The Sun, during a period of burgeoning development of Ocean City and the coastal areas and the awakening of the ecological movement impacting the Eastern Shore and Chesapeake Bay. She later commented, “It was the conflict of these two forces which was the subject of much of my reporting during my years on The Sun.” Her coverage of wetlands destruction in the early 1970’s led to her receipt of the Conservation Communicator of the Year Award in 1974 from the Maryland Wildlife Federation “for the outstanding conservation effort in the state during the year in accomplishing the most in creating a public awareness of the importance of natural resource conservation.” Her article in The Sun about the University of Maryland Eastern Shore’s struggles for acceptance received honorable mention from the 1974 Media Awards for Coverage of Higher Education, issued by the Mason-Dixon District of the American College Public Relations Association.

After retiring from The Sun in 1986, she authored 3 books--City on the Sand – Ocean City and the People Who Built It, Museums and Monuments of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and Maryland’s Eastern Shore – A Guide for Wanderers. She engaged in diverse activities including public relations for Salisbury University and part ownership of a historic oyster buy boat, the Half Shell, that took groups on tours of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. In her own words, she also had “time to be a friend.” She had a wide range of adventurous travels that strayed off the beaten path—horseback riding in the Rocky Mountains with Trail Riders of the Wilderness, climbing Old Rag Mountain in the Shenandoah Mountains with her grandsons, white water rafting through the Grand Canyon, sailing down the intracoastal waterway of the East Coast, and traveling worldwide with family and friends to Alaska, England, Ireland, Scotland, Switzerland, Spain, France, Greece, Italy, Morocco, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Caribbean islands, Australia, and New Zealand.

She returned to her parents’ retirement home in Churchville, Harford County in 1990 where her 4 grandchildren – Lea, Glenn, Patrick, and Candace could relive her children’s memories of visits to their grandmother’s house. She continued to hike and camp with friends, family, and outings groups and even took up kayaking in her 80’s. She joined the Deer Creek Friends Meetinghouse and enjoyed their wide-ranging discussions. With the Friends, she advocated for American Indians and joined peace marches in Washington, D.C. She edited a newsletter for the Harford Land Trust and enjoyed participation with friends in a book club and garden club. Her library and music collections were extensive, reflecting her wide-ranging intellectual curiosity and appreciation of the arts. Until the end, she enjoyed reading the daily newspaper and engaging in conversation with family and friends and with aides who became her friends.

She moved to Brightview Avondell in Bel Air shortly before the diagnosis of cancer that ended her truly epic life. In her children and grandchildren, she leaves a legacy of love of the outdoors and nature and a penchant for adventurous travel and lifelong learning.