Mary Teal Garland

Joyfully modeled what it is to be a citizen

HANCOCK - Mary Teal Garland, of Hancock, died Tuesday, September 11, 2018 on her way to vote. Nothing could have been more appropriate than for her last steps in life to be taken towards the voting booth. At the age of 90, and throughout her life, the daughter of the late Isabelle O'Sullivan and John J. Teal, the sister of Anne Bradley and John Teal, Jr. and widow of Peter Garland quietly modeled what it meant to be an active citizen.

Born in 1928, Mary grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut in a rarefied world of the time's movers and shakers. Attending first her mother's school, "Mrs. Teal's Classes," a one-room classroom in the family home in Belle Haven, and then Greenwich Academy and Smith College, she also attended Reed College for postgraduate study in dance. Her early love of dance and theatre lead her to study with such dance greats as Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham, as well as to attend the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where she encountered such luminaries as Eleanor Roosevelt.

In 1951, Mary abandoned her pursuit of dance when she met Peter Garland. The couple decided to marry after knowing each other only three days and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts while Peter finished up his graduate work at Harvard School of Design and Mary ran the interiors department of The Architects Collaborative under Walter Gropius, which transitioned to Design Research, with Ben Thompson.

In 1953, a Fulbright scholarship took Peter and Mary to Italy for two years. Peter worked for a renowned Italian architect, Gio Ponti, while Mary established a network of Scandinavian and Italian furniture designers and manufacturers for Design Research.

Their time in Italy was cut short when Peter contracted tuberculosis forcing them to return to the United States to recover. For the next two years, Mary joined Peter in the Wallingford, Connecticut Sanatorium with, what she referred to as, her "sympathetic" case of TB, and together they ran the craft school and newspaper while they "planned the rest of their lives."

Mary and Peter emerged from the sanatorium with a doctor's advisory to live a quiet and retiring life in the countryside. They did move to the countryside – Hancock, New Hampshire to be specific -- but their lives were anything but retiring or quiet. By 1956 they welcomed their first of, what would be, five children over the next five years. This period also marked the beginning of Mary's extraordinary lifelong commitment to and involvement with her community.

Over the next sixty-two years some of the committees and boards that Mary served on included; The Monadnock Community Foundation, New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, Monadnock Music, ITHAKA, Hancock School Board, Contoocook Valley School Board, The Harris Center, MacDowell Colony (for 50 years), Aid to Artisans, Hancock Library Trustee, Hancock Library Treasurer, The Well School and the NH Democratic Party as a volunteer, organizer and canvasser. Her energy was critical to the founding of The Well School, The Peterborough Indoor Tennis Courts, and Monadnock Music.

In 2017, when Mary was asked to be Hancock's Grand Marshal, they wrote, "If ever there was a community elder to honor and celebrate, surely Mary Garland stands "Above and Beyond!" Besides her tall and elegant stature, her warm and huge heart, together with her wisdom, have led her to give of herself in ways that go above and beyond time and again (and again). She quietly models for us all what it is to be a citizen, informed, active and kind beyond words, dedicated and committed to our town and world. Her sunny and cheerful spirit graces everything she does. Hancock's community fabric has been the beneficiary all these many years that she has lived here, since 1956, when she moved here with her husband Peter, and raised her five children. To Mary, we say thank you for being you!"

And her sense of community went well beyond the structured service of boards and committees. If a friend or townsperson had a loss or experienced difficulties and Mary heard about it, it was not unusual for them to find a care package on their doorstep or know that Mary was by their side to help. There are still people today that remember Mary's readings of such classics as Tolkien at the Hancock Library. And if you were to poll the artistic community of the Monadnock region, you would be hard pressed to find a person that had not enjoyed the hospitality of Mary Garland's dinner table.

Other examples of Mary's commitment to her town of Hancock emerged when there was a particular issue that she felt strongly about. She wrote letters, collected signatures, lent her time, her voice and her passion to such cases as the establishment of NH's first scenic road, Old Dublin Road and a petition to the US postal service to keep a Hancock resident postmaster in service of his town.

And still, somehow, while she was serving her community of neighbors, townsfolk and beloved friends and raising five children, Mary also found time for adventure.  In 1969-70, Mary and Peter took a sabbatical with their five children and camped across Europe, living for a year in Istanbul, Turkey. While in Turkey Mary worked as a volunteer with displaced women – helping them develop products to be sold in tourist markets – adapting traditional designs to modern materials.

Upon return from Turkey she set up an interior design business in Depot Square with Carol Gebhardt. Gebhardt and Garland designed interiors and furniture for a range of private and commercial projects in the Monadnock area including Brookstone, The Monadnock Hospital, and The Keene Sentinel as well as other projects that reached as far south as Pennsylvania, designing truck stops along the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

In the mid 1980's, after thirty-two years of marriage and her husband Peter's death, Mary refocused her energies on craft design and went to work for her dear college friend, Clare Smith at Aid to Artisans in collaboration with Save the Children. Working in remote villages – often with refugees - in the Middle East, the South Pacific, Asia and Africa, she helped craftspeople design products to expand their markets.

This was a natural step for Mary as somehow, betwixt and between her many involvements over the years, she had kept her design skills sharpened with a steady flow of continuing educational courses at Sharon Arts Center, Eastern Conn. State College, Haystack Mountain, New England School of Art, Harvard Grad school of design and needlework workshops with Erica Wilson and Elsa Williams.

In her final years, Mary turned her attention to the social and political well being of her nation. She could often be seen participating in "visibilities" with her local Democratic chapter.  After her passing, the family discovered folders filled with written responses from political representatives, attesting to the many quiet hours Mary spent in letter writing campaigns exercising her rights and what she considered her responsibility as a citizen.

Perhaps most importantly, Mary lived her life with enormous joy, humor, thoughtfulness and gratitude. Her delight in books and learning knew no bounds. Tuesday mornings with Hancock's Tuesday Academy were sacrosanct. The sound of a Viennese waltz would send her twirling into the arms of whoever was nearby. She never allowed beautiful days to pass without a hike or a picnic, (a hard boiled egg and beer). She sang with her children on road trips, donned elegant costumes for croquet matches or scary ones for Halloween, and entertained and connected every social nook and category of New England and beyond with her delectable dinners and spontaneous dances.

Mary is survived by her children; Tara Garland-Dalton, Aaron Garland, Brahma (ne Daniel) Garland, Natasha Garland and Sarah Garland-Hoch as well as nine grandchildren: Peter and Lyra Dalton; Peter, Michael and Megan Olenick; Radhika Garland; Connor Martin; and Thacher and Isabelle Hoch. She is also survived by her sons –in-law and daughter-in-law; Sand Dalton, Molly Garland, Enrico Cristiani and Roland Hoch. Her sisters-in-laws; Toni Garland, Mary Brubaker and Francis Garland; her brother-in-law Jay Garland; her nieces Ptarmigan and Nuna Teal, Anne (Bambi) Sigurdson, Gail Ledbetter, Lorraine Re, Jill Garland, Tina Brubaker, Kambrah and Alex Garland, Cindy Tarnowski, and Donna Cochran, and nephews Kim and Jay Bradley, John and Lansing Teal, Charles Garland, Tom and Dave Brubaker, Eric Garland, Mark Cochran and Akhil Garland.

All are welcome to join family and friends at Mary's memorial service in the Hancock Meeting House, Saturday, October 27th at 2pm. Memories and messages for the family will be welcomed at ntgarland@mac.com">ntgarland@mac.com">ntgarland@mac.com">ntgarland@mac.com. In lieu of flowers, VOTE!