Mary Thacher

12/20/1933 - 7/28/2025

Stonington - Mary McGrath Thacher, artist and historian, died July 28, 2025 in Stonington. She was 91. Mary McGrath Thacher was born in New York City Dec. 20, 1933 to Raymond Dyer McGrath and Anne Creveling Serre McGrath.

She grew up in Warrenton, Va., and La Malbaie (Murray Bay), Canada, and graduated from high school in 1950 from Miss Porter's School in Farmington. Mary attended Bryn Mawr College, graduating cum laude in 1954.

After college, Mary began her career as a Latin teacher and photographer. On March 2, 1957, she married Peter Shaw Thacher and moved to New York City where Peter was serving in the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. She joined Photo Researchers, Inc., a photo agency, as a contributing nature photographer and taught crewel work for Erica Wilson, Inc. while volunteering in the Office of the President at the American Museum of Natural History. In 1971, Mary and Peter and their three children, Anne, Linda and Shaw, all born in New York, moved to Geneva, Switzerland where Peter worked to prepare for the Stockholm Conference, which resulted in the formation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The family lived in Geneva until 1977, when they moved to Nairobi, Kenya when Peter was appointed deputy director of UNEP.

In Geneva, Mary received her diploma in printmaking from the Ecole Superieure des Arts (Beaux Arts). She showed her photographs and artwork in Washington, New York, and Geneva, later in Nairobi, and at the Lyman Allyn Museum in New London.

After retiring from the U.N., in 1983, the family returned to the United States and settled in Stonington and in Washington, D.C. Mary continued her printmaking at the Alexandria, Va., Torpedo Factory Art Center, studying lithography with Discover Graphics Atelier. Mary joined the board of the Stonington Historical Society and became its president from 1990 to 1993, librarian and archivist 1993 to 2001, and library director 2001 to 2006. From 1998 to 2006, she was the Stonington Town Historian. She also served on the Inland Wetlands Commission for the Town of Stonington from 1989 to 1998, and on the Architectural Design Review Board for the Town between 2008 and 2010.

Mary Thacher was an important scholar on genealogy, real estate holdings, family backgrounds, and the history of maritime and commercial development of the Connecticut Coast. She was pleased to discover that two of her ancestors included early settlers in Stonington (Robert Park and Thomas Wheeler), a host of families from Norwich, and early settlers of New York City. She did extensive research on the history of the town, the development of Stonington Borough, researched and compiled a book of portraits of Stonington residents from 1737 on, and transcribed several archival collections of Stonington letters. She wrote articles for the Stonington Historical Society's Historical Footnotes, had her work published in American Ancestors of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, the NEHGS Register and the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. In July 2003, her article on Stonington Borough appeared in The Magazine Antiques. She authored the appendix for the second edition of the Creveling Genealogy, outlining the history of the Creveling family in Germany from 1640 on. She was the transcriber of the Aaron Hand Family Papers; and of the family letters of the James Dyer family of Dyersville, Iowa; of the Bradford Fanning Archive; and of many papers in the Palmer Loper Collection at the U.S. Library of Congress. Indeed, it is said that every author who wrote on the careers of Americans fighting the British in the War of 1812, or building fortunes from 1800 to 1850, or intermarrying, or buying and selling major houses from Rhode Island to New York City relied on Mary's detailed study of area families and their communities.

Mary was dedicated to her family, as well as being an accomplished cook and an enthusiastic gardener. She loved the beauty of the natural world, was a keen amateur birdwatcher, botanist and geologist.

She was predeceased by her husband Peter Shaw Thacher in 1999; by her daughter Anne Creveling Thacher in 2017; and by her sister Anne McGrath Lederer in 2020. She is survived by her children, Linda Thacher Visscher of Mystic (Pieter Visscher) and Peter Shaw Thacher Jr. of Stonington: her grandchildren, Adeline Shaw Visscher and Adrian Hand Visscher; her niece Sloane Lederer (Lucius Palmer); and her nephew Andrew W. Lederer; her great-nephew Schuyler Beekman Palmer; and two great-nieces, Phebe Schmidt and Natalie Palmer; and a sister-in-law, Patricia D. Lipe.

A Memorial Mass will be held at 10 a.m. Friday, Aug. 8, at St. Mary's Church, 22 Broad Street, in Stonington. In lieu of flowers, donations to Historic Stonington are greatly appreciated.