Obituary of Mary Pierce

Mary Pierce

March 16, 1928 - June 16, 2017

Mary Patricia “Molly” (Brady) Pierce of Vancouver, Washington died

at Community Hospice, on Friday, June 16 at the age of 89. She was

born in Bayonne, New Jersey on March 16, 1928, daughter of the late

Alfred V. and Mary E.(Korbelak)Brady. She graduated from Bayonne

High School in 1945, and attended New Jersey College for Women of

Rutgers University. She completed her bachelor’s and master’s

degrees in Communications in 1981 at the University of North

Carolina at Greensboro.

Molly displayed a remarkable talent for the performing arts from an

early age, playing piano by sight and by ear, singing, and dancing

both tap and ballet. She sang with a college quartet, “The Sleepy

Time Gals,” with her sister Rosemary. In the early 1950s she modeled

in New York City, and sang with, “The Sunnysiders,” a quartet that

later became “The Manhattans.” The group performed across the

United States and Canada, recorded four singles, and joined a USO

tour of Europe in 1956. Molly also performed in college and

community theatre, including productions of “The Taming of the

Shrew,” “Once Upon A Mattress,” “Da,” and “The Trojan Women.”

On January 26, 1957, Molly married trumpeter Richard F. “Dick”

Pierce of Saranac Lake, New York. They shared sixty years of

marriage and a deep love of all kinds of music, especially classical

and jazz.

In addition to the performing arts, Molly was active in the several

communities where she lived(Riverdale, N.Y.; Bayonne, N.J.; High

Point, N.C.; Martinsville, Va.; Torrington, Ct.; Alpharetta, Ga.;

Cincinnati, Ohio; and Vancouver, Wa.), most notably on the parish

councils at the Catholic Church, in the YWCA where she instructed

swimming and water safety classes, and as a substitute teacher In

the 1990s she earned her credential as an ESOL instructor and found

a new passion teaching English to adults in Bayonne public schools

and as ESOL program director at St. Francis Catholic Church in New

York City.

A true “renaissance woman,” Molly took a keen interest in all aspects

of human endeavor, exploring world cultures, politics, and her Irish

and Slovak roots through travel, reading, film and theatre. She was in

one of the first tour groups to visit China in 1979.

She leaves her husband, Dick; daughter Jennifer “Jenny” Teppo and

son-in- law, Arnie, of Vancouver; son R. Andrew “Andy” Pierce of

Quincy, Massachusetts; granddaughters Kirsi Teppo, Senja Teppo,

Anika Teppo and Ilsa Teppo; sister Rosemary(Brady)Monagan of

Washington, D.C.; and many loving nieces, nephews and cousins.

She is predeceased by brothers Alfred V. Brady and Harold J. Brady.

Services are private. Donations may be made to Phame Academy in

Portland, Oregon at their website phamepdx.org.