CENTER HARBOR – Mary Rand Tracy, formerly of Concord and New London, died June 21, 2019, in Meredith of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Born in Sackville, N.B, Canada, on Aug. 26, 1929, she was the only child of Ethel W. (Jones) and Fred R. Rand.
In 1951, she graduated with first class honors in Economics from Mount Allison University in Canada and after graduation was awarded the Lord Beaverbrook Scholarship to attend the London School of Economics in England.
She returned to Canada and earned a master’s degree from the Maritime School of Social Work in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She then worked for the Children’s Aid Society in Halifax before meeting and marrying George Albert Tracy in 1957.
The couple moved to St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H., where he was a Latin, Greek and Shakespeare teacher and athletics coach for almost 40 years.
Mary first worked in Concord as a social worker for Child and Family Services of New Hampshire, then with the Concord Area VNA for many years before changing fields to help people prepare their taxes at H&R Block.
A longtime volunteer in the Concord community, Mary used her business acumen, her early feminist sensibility, and environmental concern to do good work.
She volunteered for the Junior Service League of Concord, Granite United Way, and the League of Women Voters of New Hampshire. She also enjoyed teaching school children about nature as a volunteer for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.
In their retirement, Mary and George moved to New London where they volunteered for the Ausbon-Sargent Land Preservation Trust, Habitat for Humanity, and Adventures in Learning at Colby-Sawyer College. They were active volunteers and communicants of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church.
Mary enjoyed wildflowers, swimming in the cold ocean, gardening, traveling the world over, knitting and her cats. She particularly enjoyed her year living in Oxford, England, with her family when her husband was on sabbatical in 1969 and 1970.
In 2009, Mary moved to Rumney and later to Center Harbor, where she lived with her daughter, Paula and her family until 2017 when she moved to memory care at Meredith Bay Colony Club. There, she received exceptional care until her peaceful passing at almost age 90 with her two daughters by her side.
Mary was predeceased by her husband, George, in 2007, and by their son, Jonathan F. Tracy, in 1990.
She is survived by her two daughters and their families, Nora Tracy Phillips of Wellesley, Mass., and Paula Tracy of Center Harbor. Members of their two families include Tim, Jonathan, and Susannah Phillips of Massachusetts, and Thomas Cowie of Center Harbor, and Eliza Cowie of Boulder, Colo.
A celebration of life and service is being planned for August in Concord.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that gifts in Mary’s honor be directed to the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests at https://forestsociety.org/ or the charity of one’s choice.
For memorial information, visit Mayhew Funeral Homes