Meeting House Road East Sandwich. Interment to follow at the Massachusetts National Cemetery. A luncheon will be held at the parish following interment. A memorial with visiting hours will be held at the Mary E. (Blanchard) Wagner passed away Saturday, June 29, 2019 at her home in East Sandwich, Massachusetts. She was the owner of Mary’s Bookstore of Scorton Creek on Route 6A.
She was the wife of the late Edward Richard Wagner. She leaves three sisters: Patricia Sabatini of Centerville, MA, Margaret Philips of Virginia and Carolyn Chaisson of West Virginia.
She is survived by her son Edward W. Wagner and daughter-in-law Karen Schneiderman of Boston, her son Michael Wagner and daughter-in-law Tamrea Wagner of Troy, New York, her daughter Eileen Wagner of Boston, her daughter Teresa Wagner and son-in-law Christopher Domenech also of Troy New York. She also leaves five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Mary Eileen Wagner was born on May 6, 1932 in Newton Massachusetts. She is the daughter of the late Dr. Walter O. Blanchard originally of Somerville Massachusetts and Mary Bowen of Cambridge. Dr. Blanchard, a graduate of Harvard Medical School was a resident of Newton Wellesley Hospital and MIT Health Services and later the first medical director of Raytheon Corporation.
She spent the first twenty-one years of her life in Newton Corners where she attended Newton Country Day School of the Sacred Heart. She graduated from Radcliffe College in Cambridge, MA in 1953 after spending her junior year as an exchange student in France.
Upon graduation Mary moved to Washington DC where she was hired by the National Security Administration. She was an employee of the NSA until her marriage to Edward R. Wagner in 1958.
Edward and Mary moved to Schenectady New York in 1960 when Edward was hired by the General Electric Corporation. For the next thirty one years he was an employee of the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory. During that time in upstate New York, Mary raised her four children, Edward, Michael, Eileen and Teresa. She became involved in the PTA (Parent Teachers’ Association) eventually rising to become regional director in upstate New York. Later she was elected to the board of the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake School System.
Upon Edward’s retirement in 1992, they moved to Cape Cod (where Mary had spent many summers as a girl). They settled on Route 6A in East Sandwich. In 1993 she opened Mary’s Bookstore where, for the next twenty-five years, she became a fixture in the community selling thrillers and mysteries to tourists, religious books and recommending “reads” to children and young adults. The store closed in 2017.
Mary was also an active member of the Sandwich Republican Town committee. She received the RTC’s first Republican of the Year award in 2004. She was, with Edward, an active communicant of the Corpus Christi Parish in Sandwich.
A Funeral Mass will be held on Tuesday, July 9, 2019 at 11:00 am at Corpus Christi Parish 324 Quaker Nickerson-Bourne Funeral Home location in Sandwich, 154 Route 6A on Monday the evening before from 7 to 9 pm.
Donations in memory of Mary may be made to Cape Cod Cares for the Troops (http://www.capecod4thetroops.com/) or to Corpus Christi Parish.
