Marie Ellery Blanding of Lanesville died October 12, 2014, at the Seacoast Nursing and Rehabilitation Center after a brief illness. She did many things, but is best remembered by her sons and daughters as the perfect mother.
Marie was born May 24, 1926 in Erie, PA, to Katharine (Lesser) and James Benjamin Ellery. The family moved back to Gloucester when she was four, her father driving the family in a Studebaker from Erie, to live in the Ellery’s “Pine Dell” home on Dennison St.
A member of the Gloucester High School class of 1944, Marie graduated from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and received her master’s degree from Western Connecticut University.
Marie worked for the Gloucester Daily Times during and after high school, at the Winkler County News, in Kermit, Texas, and the Boston Globe. She also was a teacher at Veteran’s Memorial School, and worked in offices in Cambridge and Gloucester.
In the 1970’s and 80’s she managed the Jodrey State Fish Pier while serving as executive secretary of the Gloucester Community Pier Association. She was dockmaster, daily walking the pier, keeping an eye on things. During her years, the new freezer building was built and rebuilding of the pier itself began.
A member of the Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church, she served as chairman of the church’s Board of Managers and in the 1980’s led fundraising and restoration efforts to save the church’s steeple, which was in danger of toppling onto Church St. In 2012 she received the church’s Gloucester Citizenship Award.
After living in Norway and Holland while married to William G. Blanding, and visiting most of Europe, she kept exploring, visiting the Soviet Union, Egypt, Israel, China and the Galapagos Islands, but her favorite trips were to Seattle and Alaska for the births of her grandchildren. At age 69, she and her late friends Jean Young and Sarah “Sadie” George Thomas drove a camper cross-country from Gloucester to Seattle, with a detour through Kermit, Texas, where Marie first worked out of college.
An excellent figure skater, she grew up playing hockey with the boys on the Sheep Pond behind her home. On cross-country skis, she roamed the Lanesville woods and Dogtown. Summers she sailed and hung out at Lighthouse Beach with friends. Taking up kayaking, she once paddled alone from her Fish Pier office through the Cut Bridge and the Annisquam River to Lanesville. This past August, she led a family flotilla of kayaks and boats from Lobster Cove to Wingaersheek Beach. With her usual impatience, she was waiting at the beach before most left the dock.
Recently, she and longtime friend Sarah Hackett were amused to be in demand as historians sought their memories of growing up in Annisquam. Sarah and Marie met as six year olds, when they attended the Leonard School, where four grades of the village’s children shared one classroom.
Marie was the last born with the Ellery surname in a branch of the family descended from William Ellery, who settled in Gloucester in 1663. She was predeceased by her sisters Susan Jones and Evelyn Brennan.
She is survived by her children, Margi Blanding and her husband Arthur Kettle of Homer, Alaska, Susan Shear and her husband Randy of Seattle, Paul H. Blanding and his companion Marion Sawyer of Bay View, and John Blanding of Annisquam. Her grandchildren are Daisy Marie Kettle, Ben Kettle, Charlotte Augusta Shear, and Marena Ellery Shear. She loved hosting gatherings at her home that included nieces, nephews, cousins, friends and their families.
A celebration of Marie Ellery Blanding’s life will be held at 1 p.m. on Jan. 3, 2015 at the Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church. Memorial donations in her name may be made to the Restoration Fund of the Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church, 10 Church St., Gloucester, MA 01930 or the charity of one’s choice.