Gilmanton, NH-----Suzanne Mallory Wood, born in Middletown, NJ on January 24, 1921, died peacefully, with dignity and grace, at her beloved Gilmanton, NH home on May 4, 2007. Suzanne, known to all as Suzy, was the daughter of Henry Sprague Lippincott and Lulu Lamont Lippincott and the sister of the late Margaret Lippincott Sumner, also of Gilmanton.
Suzy graduated from Radnor High School in Wayne, PA and attended Bryn Mawr College, where she earned the BA in Art History in 1942. She then joined the US Navy WAVES, serving in the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, DC, and achieving the rank of Lieutenant JG. She married John K. (Jack) Mallory, Jr., a fellow naval officer, in August, 1944, just prior to his departure for Guam, where he served for the remainder of the war.
After the war, Suzy and Jack moved to Charlottesville, VA, where she gave birth to John K. Mallory, III in 1946. Jack earned his JD from the University of Virginia Law School in 1948. The family lived in the Washington area from 1948 to 1950, where Bruce L. Mallory was born in 1949; Wilmington, DE from 1950 to 1955, where Mark L. Mallory was born in 1953; Larchmont, New York from 1955 to 1960; and Chevy Chase, MD from 1960 until 1980. While living in Chevy Chase, Suzy completed her MA in Art History at George Washington University. She then served as a lecturer in Art History at Montgomery College in Rockville, MD for 13 years.
Following the death of her husband Jack in 1975, Suzy moved to Worcester, MA, where she married O. Bradley Wood in 1980, resulting in the addition of four step-children and their spouses to her family. While in Worcester, Suzy served as a dedicated volunteer with the local Planned Parenthood office for approximately 15 years. She and Brad were frequent travelers in the United States and Europe, joining Elderhostel trips on a regular basis. For many years, Suzy audited classes at Clark University, including many courses related to American culture, film, and Latin American literature, among other topics.
In 2004, following Brad’s death in 2002, Suzy moved to the “King Little Farm” on Sawtooth Road in Gilmanton, which she and Jack had purchased in 1967. Having spent nearly every summer of her childhood and adult years in Gilmanton, Suzy wanted to come back to her “real home.” Here she took daily walks through the fields and along the dirt roads, observed the songbirds that migrated each spring to her apple orchard and blueberry fields, swam daily from early spring to late fall in the chilly waters of Loon Pond, and happily watched her grandchildren grow into young men and women.
In 1994, she donated a conservation easement on more than 200 acres of property that she owned adjacent to Sawtooth Road, much of it held in common with James and Mary Anne Johnson, to the New Hampshire Audubon Society
Suzy will be remembered for her passion for nature, her vast and insatiable intellectual curiosity, the strong legs that carried her for decades through the White Mountains, her love of classical music and jazz, her deeply held commitment to the causes of peace and justice, her frugality, and her undiminished optimism.
Survivors include sons Jack Mallory and wife Margaret Delaney of Santa Cruz, CA; Bruce Mallory and wife Rebecca New of Portsmouth, NH; Mark Mallory and wife Nancy Ball of Gilmanton, NH; as well as step-children and their spouses, John Wood and Man Li Ho of Arrowsic, Maine, Helen Wood of San Francisco, California, Rob Wood and Gay Peterson of North Yarmouth, Maine, and Michael Wood and Nancy Dewey of Deer Isle, Maine. In addition, Suzy is survived by her nephew, six grand-children, five step-grandchildren, and a great-grandchild born on April 30, 2007.
Services will be private. Burial will be in Smith Meeting House Cemetery, Gilmanton.
In lieu of flowers, Suzy asked her friends to make a donation to the Gilmanton Land Trust, P.O. Box 561, Gilmanton, NH 03237, in the hope that more special land in town may be preserved.
The Wilkinson-Beane Funeral Home & Cremation Service, 164 Pleasant Street, Laconia, NH is in charge of the arrangements.
