SILVER SPRING, MD. – Mary Eleanor (Parker) Sadler, 97, died March 2, 2017, in Silver Spring, Md. She was born on Jan. 22, 1920, the daughter of Russell Lowell and Marguerite White (Kincaid) Parker.
She completed the program at what is now Husson University to obtain a Junior Secretarial Diploma in half the normal time. She married Arthur Sadler on Sept. 15, 1942. Arthur went to the University of Maine and then Penn State, where he got an MS in dairy science. However, without Mary he never would have survived the liberal arts classes. Her superior typing supplemented by the GI Bill got them through. These skills and her keen mind also served them well in later work as a key punch operator, word processor and data analyst.
Mary and Arthur literally built two houses, one in Maryland and one in Virginia. Mary could drive nails with the best of them, only using a 12-ounce hammer instead of a standard 16.
Mary had a lifelong love of music, especially the old hymns and those sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford. She would often listen to them as she went to sleep. She played the organ and piano both for her own enjoyment and at a number of churches she attended for about 40 years until failing vision forced her to retire.
She and her husband are both survived by their two sons, Harold and Robert, who were her joy and of whom she was quite proud. Her work got them through college debt-free and into successful careers. They are married to Joan (Homberg) and Frances (Gierula), respectively. Mary has five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren with the fifth one due in June. She was also survived by her brother Harold Parker, who was 99 and who passed away two days later, and his wife, Marie (Fernald).
Author information
The post Mary Eleanor (Parker) Sadler appeared first on The Ellsworth American.