Mary Milholland Dick, who was known as Maisie, died at home in East Hampton on July 11. She was 93.
Mrs. Dick spent much of her childhood summers at Nid de Papillon, the house her grandfather Robert Appleton and his wife, Catherine, built in 1917 on the dunes next to the Maidstone Club. She lived year round in East Hampton for several years as a child and attended school here. She remembered taking cover in the school basement during the Hurricane of 1938, her family said.
She then attended the Foxhollow School in Lenox, Mass., and Mills College in California before graduating from New York University.
She lived and worked in New York City after college, and on Feb. 11, 1956, married Charles Mathews Dick Jr. The couple first lived in Lake Forest, Ill., where they had two children. They spent a dozen or so years there while Mr. Dick worked at the A.B. Dick Company, which manufactured business machines. In 1969, they moved to Washington, D.C., and then settled in Newport, R.I.
“Maisie was an active volunteer wherever she lived: at the Lake Forest Children’s Hospital, as a civil mediator in Washington, D.C., and while in her late 80s even helping at the local food pantry in Newport, R.I.,” her family wrote.
She enjoyed cooking, reading, and gardening, and “particularly liked searching for antiques wherever she went and usually ended up bringing something home in her car,” they said.
Her husband died in 2013. In 2021, following the sale of the family home, called Ocean View, in Newport, Mrs. Dick returned to East Hampton.
She was born in New York City on Dec. 19, 1929, to James Clarke Milholland and the former Florence Appleton.
“Her laugh and smile were contagious,” her family wrote. “She was a loving daughter, sister, wife, mother, stepmother, aunt, grandmother, and friend.”
She is survived by a son, Anthony Dick of New York, and by two stepdaughters, Eleanor Dick of Hillsville, Va., and Diana Dick of Washington, D.C. She also leaves seven grandchildren and step-grandchildren and three step-great-grandchildren. A daughter, Catherine Kiser, and a stepson, Charles Mathews Dick III, died before her.
A private family service will be held tomorrow at St. Columba’s Chapel in Middletown, R.I., the Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven officiating. A celebration of her life will take place in East Hampton this fall.
Her family has suggested contributions to the East Hampton Library, 159 Main Street, East Hampton 11937.
