Mary Lewis Brown James

Mary was born in Atlanta to Joseph E. Brown, Sr. and Mary Miller Brown on September 12, 1934. She grew up in Atlanta, graduating from North Fulton High School. She received her BA from Vanderbilt University in 1956. She later received a Master's in Education from Georgia State and worked as a special education teacher in the Atlanta School System for several years. After the dissolution of her first marriage, she entered Emory Law School at the age of 42, receiving her JD in 1979. She then had a successful career as a sole practitioner in Family Law, and continued to practice law until she was 80 years old. She was a long time member of the Georgia Bar, the Atlanta Kiwanis Club, and Leadership Atlanta.

In 1986 Mary married her soul mate, Wayne James. They spent many years traveling the world, visiting such disparate places as China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ecuador, Alaska, and most of the countries in Europe. At the age of 85 she had a knee replaced so that she could visit the last place on her bucket list, Vienna, and be able to walk the streets. However, the Covid pandemic interrupted those plans, and she never visited Vienna.

Mary brought the best qualities of the Southern lady to the service of others. Calm, soft spoken, empathetic, but with a backbone of steel, she brought these qualities and her legal background to the service of many charitable and nonprofit organizations, including Emmaus House, The Atlanta Opera, The Mary Brown Fund, and others. As a longtime member of Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church she served on many of the church’s committees in extending the church’s efforts to serve poor and marginalized communities in the Atlanta area.

Mary’s beloved Wayne passed away six weeks before Mary. She was also preceded in death by her youngest son, Joseph Emerson Brown (Jeb) Corbett. She is survived by her eldest son, William James Corbett, his wife Barbara Place, and her granddaughter Kristin Nicole Corbett, as well as her step children Nathan James (Janelle), and Marceil Case (Robert). She is also survived by her brother Joseph Emerson Brown, Jr. and his wife Jacqueline, as well as her nephews Joseph E. Brown III (Shanna) and Chris E. Brown (Georgia).

Services will be held at Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church at 435 Peachtree Street in Atlanta at 2:00PM on Saturday, January 7, 2023.