Asheville Living Treasure: Mary Patton Parker

Mary Parker has been an eyewitness to Asheville’s heritage. Photo: Urban News

Staff Reports

 Mary Parker, 96, is a tradition-bearer and civic contributor to Asheville. A fifth-generation descendant of the Patton and Parker families, she has been an eyewitness to Asheville’s heritage and a chronicler of its buildings, businesses, civic institutions, neighborhoods, culture, families, and people.

As a young woman Mary worked as sales promotion director for Bon Marché department store. She considered herself fortunate that owner Louis Lipinsky was a civic-minded man. His willingness to give her time off for community work, coupled with what she calls an “inherited commitment,” allowed her to begin her lifetime of diligent service to the Asheville community.

Mary began her civic involvement in the 1940s working with such relief programs as the Red Cross and the United Way helping war-demolished European countries. In 1947, the Asheville chapter of the League of Women Voters was established, with Mary as a founding member. She remained an active member for 40 years, serving as a board member, poll watcher, and study group host. One year she took up a post in the lobby of the George Vanderbilt Hotel to demonstrate Asheville’s first voting machine.

In the 1950s, Mary made a donation to the Friends of the Library organization, launching a very energetic and life-long commitment. She served twice as board president, supervised book sales, and led fundraisers; in 1990, the NC Public Library Directors Association honored her with the Library Friend of the Year Award.

Mary also joined the board in the YWCA in the 1950s; her work with the (segregated) Phyllis Wheatley branch helped foster friendships with women in the African American community, and in the 1960s Asheville’s YWCA became the first in the south to be integrated. Mary has also given generously of her time and enthusiasm to the Colburn Mineral Museum, the Board of Memorial Mission Hospital Auxiliary, Mountain Housing Opportunities, Buncombe Co. Nursery School Board, Common Cause, Helpmate, and Habitat for Humanity (she worked on the first women’s team that built a house in east Asheville). More recently, Mary has been involved with Pisgah Legal Services: typically, she celebrated her 95th birthday with a fundraiser for the group held in the back yard of her historic Charlotte Street home.

Mary continues to open her dining room for meetings and her home and grounds for fundraising events. Like the magnificent Treasure Tree standing in her front yard, her ancestral roots run deep, her trunk is sturdy, filled with knowledge and wisdom, and her love of community has branched out to many people and organizations.

“Out of shared telling and remembering grow identity, connection, and pride, binding people
to a place and to one another.”   ~ Tom Rankin, Folklorist