Mary W. Price

Mary Henderson Wilson Price Of Cambridge MA and formerly of Wilton, CT, passed away on May 8, her eighty-fourth birthday. She was the daughter of Louis and Isabella Wilson, of Motherwell, Scotland, who immigrated to the United States in 1923 and 1924. She lost her father at three, and her mother at eight, but carried the memory of their intelligence, industry, curiosity, and joy for life until her last day, and conveyed this to her children and grandchildren. The challenges she faced following the loss of her parents forged a life-long sense of the need to care for society's most vulnerable, and an appreciation for the difference a single person can make in the life of another. She believed strongly in the importance of civic engagement and was an active volunteer in local and national politics throughout her life, tirelessly writing letters to legislators, going door-to-door for Barack Obama, and in her eighties, traveling through the night to march in Washington. Although she was a strong student at Pittsburgh's Peabody High School, counselors discouraged her from applying to college because she lacked financial support. At age eighteen she moved into the Athalia Daly Home for Young Women, and began working at the Western Theological Seminary, while taking night courses at the University of Pittsburgh. In 1949 she married William Bellows, with whom she raised three children. The demands of family further delayed her education. Only after her children had graduated from college did she finally complete her own long-deferred degree in 1988, as an Ada Comstock Scholar at Smith College, making the Dean's List while carrying a full course load and continuing to work professionally. In 1960 she moved her young family to Tehran, Iran, and embraced the cultural and logistical challenges with her usual enthusiasm. She lived in Greenwich Village in the early 60's, married Robert Price in 1965, and moved with him and her children to Wilton CT. There she began a career a real estate broker, forging life-long friendships with many clients. She served as president of the Fairfield County Women's Council of Realtors. She moved to Cambridge MA in 1993 to be closer to her children and grandchildren, and re-established herself as a broker in Carlisle and Concord, MA. She also worked as a fundraiser for WGBH in Boston from 1995-2009. For the past eighteen years she maintained a community garden along the Charles River, prepared weekly meals for the St. Paul Parish food pantry, and cared for her grandchildren. In 2011 she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with fellow parishioners. Her Funeral Mass will be held at St. Paul's in Harvard Square, on Friday, May 25, at 10 AM, with a reception to follow. She will be interred at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. She leaves two sisters, Henrietta Wells of Strongsville OH, and Isabel Retterer of Erie PA, three children, Brad Bellows and Susan Bellows of Cambridge, and Anne Bellows of Boston, and five grandchildren, Ellora, Claire, and Julia Berthet, Julian Knight, and Meredith Zielonka.