Obituary of Mary P. Packwood

Mary P. Packwood was among those women who felt the winds of change after World War II bringing them opportunities for careers heretofore unimaginable. She set her sights on newspapers and worked long and hard and happily, for East Coast papers for 40 years. Ms. Packwood, age 92, died January 14, 2021. At the New Bedford (MA) Standard-Times where at 14 she had been a Fairhaven High School correspondent and later, while a student at Boston University, as a daily reporter each summer, she learned her trade working beside seasoned writers who had seen and covered everything from World War II battles to fishing fleet disasters to Lizzie Borden years after her famous murder trial. Known to her newspaper colleagues as “Packy,” Ms. Packwood moved on as a reporter-editor to the Providence (RI) Journal-Bulletin and the Binghamton (NY) Press where she added photography to her reporting skills. She worked with heavy Speed Graphic cameras, their bulkiness making her 4-foot, 10 inch height appear even shorter. While at the latter paper she was awarded a Reid Fellowship from the New York Herald-Tribune and in 1956-58 reported from Yugoslavia, the USSR and Europe. When the Hungarian Revolution broke out, she was at the Bridge at Andau with James Michener and other correspondents covering the turmoil as refugees fled across the Austrian border. Back in the United States, she de-emphasized society news and developed the first feature section for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, assigning a staff of women reporters to the State House and other agencies, covering political, medical and general interest news. When she applied to Time Magazine in 1960, they told her that “women at Time are researchers, not writers.” But Ms. Packwood was not one to take rejection lightly. She went to The Philadelphia Bulletin where she became the first woman features editor and copy desk chief. As a writer-editor, she worked for that paper also as a night city editor, Sunday Magazine editor and Travel editor. She was among the first travel editors to be invited to China when it decided to encourage tourists after Nixon’s historic visit. Her series on the opening of China to tourism was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 and won the Pennsylvania Associated Press First Prize for Features; and the Golden Typewriter for Feature writing Award from the Philadelphia Press Association. In 1982, along with many other great newspapers, The Philadelphia Bulletin folded, and Ms. Packwood, while continuing to free-lance articles to other newspapers, moved on to allied fields: as Publicity Relations Director for the former Philadelphia Drama Guild; as an editor for The Westminster Press; and as a Director for the Presbyterian Church (USA) Board of Pensions where she established the Board’s first Communications Department. As an instructor at Temple University’s School of Communications, she passed on her knowledge to a new generation of students in her classes on news and public relations writing. Ms. Packwood was a past president of the Residents Council at Riddle Village, a retirement community in Delaware County where she lived and where as president she spearheaded the drive for a residents’ finance committee, which made Riddle Village one of the first communities in the area to establish such a committee. She was a lifelong traveler, mountain hiker, walker and avid reader, especially of biographies and history. Mary Pauline Packwood was the daughter of the late Harry H. Packwood and Mary A. (McDermott) Packwood, and was brought up in Fairhaven, MA. She was graduated from Fairhaven High School and she was a graduate of Boston University and of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She was pre-deceased by brothers Harry Jr. and Lawrence B., and a sister, Marilyn A. Walsh. Survivors include her nephew, Lawrence R. (Bobby) Packwood of Sedgwick, ME, her niece, Nancy (Fred) Koufos and nephew Stephen Packwood; grand-niece, Kimberly (Scott) Koufos-Bevan; grand-nephew, Kevin (Heather) Koufos; and great-grand nephews and nieces, all of Danvers, MA. She is also survived by a warm and caring family of friends whose loyalty and support, together with her mother’s faith, gave her the encouragement to follow her star. Interment will be in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA, Memorial contributions may be made to Middletown Free Library, 21 North Pennell Road, Media, PA 19063.