Madeline Lippman, a former Baltimore City Public Schools librarian and mother of author Laura Lippman, dies
Madeline Mabry Lippman, a Baltimore City Schools librarian, died on Sept. 7 at Union Memorial Hospital after she stopped breathing and was transported from her home at Roland Park Place. She was 93 and had lived in Dickeyville and Fenwick Island, Delaware.
Born in Nashville, Tennessee, she was the daughter of Mary Julia Moore and Carl Hopper. Her parents divorced when she was young, and her mother then married Emory Speer Mabry Jr., who adopted her and was the only father she knew.
She was born to a family of teachers.
"According to family lore, her grandmother, Robert Effie Moore, would unwind after a day of teaching by enjoying a novel new refreshment at the drugstore near her streetcar stop. She so enjoyed it, she invested in a few shares of Coca-Cola stock, and my mother, while a savvy and even adventurous investor, still retained some shares of Coca-Cola stock when she died," said her daughter, novelist and former Baltimore Sun reporter Laura Lippman.
"My mom simply wanted to be a person that other people found interesting and supportive, a good friend, and she was easily that. The Southern accent that she never lost despite living almost two-thirds of her life in Baltimore only added to her charm," Laura Lippman said.
Madeline Lippman earned a degree, with honors, at what is now Brenau University and was a member of the Tri-Delta sorority. She went to work for a dean at Emory University, where she met her future husband, Theo Lippman Jr., who was attending graduate school.
"According to family legend, when she announced her engagement, her boss pulled her future husband's record and argued strenuously against the marriage. Nevertheless, they married on July 16, 1955," Laura Lippman said.
Madeline Lippman moved as her husband took newspaper jobs. He accepted a job in the Washington, D.C., bureau for the Atlanta Constitution, assuring his wife they would eventually return to Georgia. Instead, they moved to Baltimore in 1965, and she would end up spending the rest of her life in Baltimore and Fenwick Island, Delaware.
In 1970, she earned a master's in library science from the University of Maryland, College Park, specializing in children's literature. She worked as a librarian in the city school system, first at Dicky Hill Elementary and then at Lakeland Elementary-Middle.
They moved to Fenwick Island in 1996, which became their home, although they kept a small apartment in Tuscany-Canterbury until 2001.
"My mother may have been retired, but she was never idle, volunteering at the local public library and spending much time in her well-tended garden. She also was a highly skilled knitter, producing homemade afghans and Christmas stockings for several generations of family members. She traveled whenever possible, taking trips to France Italy, and Denmark," Laura Lippman said.
After her husband's 2014 death, Madeline Lippman returned to Baltimore and settled in Roland Park Place, a retirement community, and joined its recycling committee. She was also a library volunteer.
She is survived by her daughters, Laura Lippman and Susan Seegar, of Baltimore; her brother, Emory Speer Mabry, of Atlanta; and two grandchildren.
No service is planned.
