OBITUARY: Mary W. McClintock

Mary Whitmore McClintock of Concord, MA died peacefully on November 6th, 2013 at the age of 92. Born on July 24th, 1921 in Greenfield, MA, she grew up on the family farm in North Sunderland, MA where she went to elementary school in the same small schoolhouse as her father. Mary attended Northfield School for Girls and later Wellesley College ’42, as had her mother, Martha R. Whitmore ’20, her grandmother Mary H. Richardson 1887 and later her daughter Martha ’69. She met her husband of 66 years, the late Professor Frank A. McClintock, at a square dance and married on September 10th, 1944.

Mary and Frank were founding settlers of the progressive Conantum housing community in Concord. Mary was a wonderful and adventurous mother to her four children: Martha and her husband Joel Charrow of Chicago, IL; Roger and his wife Jane Jeffries, presently on the high seas off Philippines; David and his wife Nancy of Lyman, ME and Rich of Denver, CO. She enjoyed her five grandchildren, a great grand daughter, and many nieces and nephews.  Mary was a cohesive matriarch for both sides of her extended family and a loving sister to the late Carolyn Shilling of Kingston, RI and her brother William Whitmore of Sunderland.

As a farm child, Mary spent much of her childhood alone outdoors and roamed the forests, streams and fields of her family farm, showering under waterfalls and swimming from “the rocks” in the Connecticut River.  From her mother she learned the night sky and to “bird by ear”, from her father the native plants, geology and work on the farm.  From this arose a deep, abiding and comforting connection with nature.  

Mary McClintock wrote her senior thesis on the “ecosystem” of Observatory Hill at Wellesley College, 12 years before the first ecology textbook was published.  Then, having minored in mathematics, Mary was hired by the Statistics Department at Employers Liability Assurance Company (the only woman there with a college degree) and was sent to International Business Machines (IBM) to learn how to code (i.e. physically wire) “computers”. MIT’s Center of Analysis recruited her to code a secret wartime project, which she figured out was weather prediction, and used for D-Day. She eagerly embraced the rise of computers, first for writing and later sleuthing answers on the internet for her family and friends. With her love of numbers, she served for over 25 years as the treasurer of the Women’s Parish Association of the First Parish Meetinghouse in Concord, MA as well as for the Thoreau Lyceum and the Conantum Garden Club.

A competitive swimmer, she became manager of the Wellesley College Swim Team, taught swimming and water safety at the YMCAs of Boston, Hartford, and Pasadena CA, Hartford Junior College, Hillyer Junior College, and later at Walden Pond in Concord. Her love of the outdoors also led her hiking, camping, canoeing, skiing, gently walking through the woods and climbing through alpine gardens above timberline in Colorado during her many summer family trips out west.

Mary McClintock became the legendary “nature lady” teaching field natural history courses for the Thoreau Lyceum, the Concord Public Schools and Concord Adult Education, leading children and adults in her classes around Walden Pond. She shared her in-depth knowledge of Thoreau’s journals, walking and pausing in the same places that Thoreau wrote about. She strongly believed that environmental education was for all ages, teaching nature in the First Parish nursery school, elementary, junior and high schools throughout the greater Boston area as well as college courses. A leader in the inner city “Birds Go to School” program, she caught wild starlings to share with the class before releasing them out the window.  She also trained teachers at the Elbanobscot Foundation and developed “Armchair Naturalist”, a course for older adults (aged 80 to 94).

Mary would sit outdoors for hours simply noticing all that came to her through sight, sound, smells or touch.  She delighted in finding the first shoots of spring, songs of returning birds, peepers, the coming of fall and life in winter. Regardless of the season she would bring back to the house a variety of flowers, pinecones, dried seeds or leaves. At other times she would go out exploring, often taking the road unknown.  She could not pass a dirt road without turning in to see what secrets it held. She would gather the family in the car and drive to a nearby hill to watch the sunset and smell the apple blossoms. Her belief of the importance of land preservation for generations to come led her to dedicate some of the woods surrounding her family farm in Sunderland for land conservation and public use.

Mary had a wonderful curiosity about life near and far.  She loved learning about Unitarian Universalism, Judaism and many other religions, getting on her hands and knees looking for worms from a robin’s eye view, or discovering the meaning of a new word. She enriched the Concord Chorus with her harmonious alto voice.

Mary brought family, friends and strangers into her warm embrace with the telling of stories and her impish sense of humor. She treasured her many friends, including meeting weekly since the ‘50’s with women neighbors in Conantum under the cover name, “The Sewing Group”, which carries on to this day.  

A Memorial service for Mary will be held Saturday November 16th at 10 a.m. in the First Parish Meetinghouse, 20 Lexington Rd., Concord Center. A reception will follow in the Church Hall at 11a.m. and all are welcome.

Memorial gifts in her name may be made to Kestrel Land Trust, P. O. Box 1016, Amherst, MA 01004 (kestreltrust.org/donate.php), for land conservation in the Connecticut River Valley. Family condolences address: Newbury Court, 80 Deaconess Road #341 Concord, MA 01742.

Arrangements under the care of Dee Funeral Home of Concord, Susan M. Dee and Charles W. Dee, Jr., Funeral Directors.

To share a remembrance in the online guest book, please visit www.deefuneralhome.com