Mary Elizabeth McGuinness

Mary was a shy and generous soul with a keen sense of humor that always seemed to take you by surprise.  She spent most of her life in the family home in Woodcliff Lake, NJ, surrounded by her plants, pets and wildlife until her mother died and the Covid shutdown made the maintenance of the house impossible.  She moved to Harrington to be near her sisters Jill and Meg and ultimately to Denton where she lived with Meg until she died.

Mary was a florist for most of her adult life, but she also had a real passion for house plants that overflowed at home and in a backyard greenhouse: first orchids, then cacti and succulents and more lately ferns and lavender.  She found that her plants were often preferred fodder for deer, which of course, she fed cracked corn in the winters.

Adapting to the more direct sun and heat of the Eastern Shore was a challenge for Mary’s favorite plants, which competed with more rabbits and squirrels than deer.  She tried her best, and despite being reunited with her sisters and welcomed by nieces and nephews and their young families, the longing for home and for her dear friends at her flower shop took its toll.  She died in part of a broken heart, finally leaving peacefully at Talbot Hospice on her sister Jill’s birthday in November.

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