IMRIE-MCGOWAN, Mary

Mary Brookings Imrie-McGowan died Jan. 29, in San Francisco. She had homes in Oak Brook, Ill., and Hinsdale, Ill., for nearly 40 years, and was a Christian Science practitioner for most of that time, almost to the week of her death. She married Army Air Corps Lt. Walter Curtis Imrie in 1945 and they enjoyed nearly 60 years together until his death in 2004. Her second marriage was to a World War II boyfriend. Robert Lee McGowan, of Alexandria, Va., who also had lost a spouse, and had neglected to get formally engaged when he deployed as a PT-boat captain in the South Pacific a half-century earlier. McGowan found Mary Imrie with help from an Internet-savvy friend, and six months after that they eloped, enjoying eight months as newlyweds before McGowan died. Imrie-McGowan was born Dec. 17, 1922, in Alexandria, Va., in an antebellum house on 100 acres. Her mother died when she was three. She was adept at tennis (playing into her 80s), piano, riding and track. She set the U.S. high-school broad-jump record in 1936 with a leap of 16 feet, notable because she was only an eighth-grader. She graduated from Madeira School and spent a gap year at Walnut Hill School before entering Mount Holyoke College. She graduated in Northwestern University's class of 1944 with a degree in sociology. During World War II, with all three brothers in the U.S. Navy, she worked with the Red Cross in Washington D.C. Before marrying Walter Imrie, she was art director at Washington's Barney Neighborhood House, a venerable shelter for the poor, the disabled and the elderly. Her three sons were born in Washington: Walter Curtis Imrie Jr. of Buena Vista; John Brookings Imrie, who drowned in the Arkansas River in 1969; and Gordon MacDonald Imrie of Richmond, Calif. The family spent ten child-rearing years in Atlanta, moving to Oak Brook, Ill., in 1963. Soon after, when people began calling her to pray with them on health, financial and family problems, Mary Imrie officially became a Christian Science practitioner. She was invited to give many four-hour addresses on her practice to groups around the United States over her 40-year career. Her sons entered Northwestern, Harvard and Stanford, as husband Walter shifted careers from aircraft sales, to manufacturing, to management of 24 housing units that the couple built. He also served as an Oak Brook, Ill., village trustee. In 1963-64, Mary Imrie was pivotal in the Illinois presidential nomination campaign of Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, run by her college roommate. She also enjoyed the Hinsdale Tennis Association, the Hinsdale Garden Club and others, and was a Daughter of the American Revolution. She sometimes skied with her husband in Colorado; traveled to 49 states and Europe, South America and the Mideast holy lands; and was intensely interested in politics, music and family history. Imrie-McGowan is also survived by California grandsons John Brookings Imrie II, Parker Ludlow Imrie and Milo McIntosh Imrie. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be sent to The First Church of Christ, Scientist, 275 Massachusetts Ave., Boston, MA 02115; or the Animal Welfare Institute, 900 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, Washington, D.C. 20003-2140. 2012