Mary M. Lindberg

Mrs. Lindberg grew up in Washington, DC, and lived in Montgomery County for the last 41 years of her life.

A pediatric nurse, who graduated from Boston Children’s Hospital School of Nursing, Mrs. Lindberg was a nurse at Montgomery County Hospice in recent years. Before her return to Maryland in 1984, Mrs. Lindberg was an administrator at Stephens College in Columbia, MO., where she was also active in hospice care.

Mrs. Lindberg was often called the First Lady of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (National Institutes of Health) by appreciative employees. She was married to Donald A.B. Lindberg, M.D., the director of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) from 1984 to 2015, and knew many Library employees.

Mrs. Lindberg was celebrated at NLM for her tolerance, self-contained dignity without passivity, grace, and applied medical knowledge. Mrs. Lindberg tirelessly counseled many NLM employees about health care for their family and friends. Her hospice expertise helped many NLM employees arrange care for terminally ill family members.

NLM employees recalled her demeanor as ‘regal’ and ‘poised.’ Groups of former NLM employees continued to meet informally with Mrs. Lindberg until a month before her death. E. Andrew Balas, M.D., the current President of the Friends of the National Library of Medicine, described Mrs. Lindberg as ‘an inspiring presence to those who had the privilege of knowing her.’ The latter included more than a generation of international leaders in medical informatics and medical librarians.

Mrs. Lindberg hand-wrote tailored thank-you and congratulatory notes; she tirelessly baked tasty bread for guests, family, and friends for more than half a century.

Mrs. Lindberg met Dr. Lindberg in 1956, early in their medical professional careers, at what was then called the Presbyterian Hospital in the City of New York. Mrs. Lindberg loved telling the story of how her husband became ‘hopelessly lost’ while driving in New York on their first date. They married in 1957.

The Lindbergs lived and raised three sons in Columbia, MO., in the 1960s and 1970s when Dr. Lindberg was a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine.

Dr. Lindberg died in 2019. Mrs. Lindberg is survived by her sons, Donald Allen Bror Lindberg II (Indiana), and Jonathan Edward Moyer Lindberg (Oregon); daughters-in-law Amy Leigh Frank Lindberg (Oregon), Becki Hahn Lindberg (Indiana), Kelly McGee Lindberg (Washington); and grandchildren, Frances Marie Musick Lindberg (Washington) and Christopher Martin Jurgen Lindberg (Oregon). A third son, Christopher Lindberg, died in 1996. Roy S. Musick Jr. M.D., Mrs. Lindberg’s brother, died in 2022.

The family requests that memorial donations be sent to Montgomery County Hospice (www.montgomeryhospice.org).