Mary G. Sharp, world traveler
Mary G. Sharp, a homemaker and world traveler, died in her sleep Aug. 16 at her home in the Charlesmeade neighborhood of Baltimore County. She was 100.
The former Mary Guthrie Miller was born and raised in Chicago. She was the daughter of Dr. Edwin Morton Miller, a surgeon, and Blanche Guthrie Miller, a registered nurse.
She was a 1936 graduate of the Francis W. Parker School in Chicago, and received a bachelor’s degree in 1940 from Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Va.
She then obtained a master’s degree in social work from Simmons College in Boston, and worked briefly as a social worker in the city.
While in Boston, she met and fell in love with Dr. Howard A. Naquin, who at the time was attending Harvard Medical School. The couple married in 1943 and relocated to Baltimore four years later.
Her husband, an eye surgeon at the Wilmer Eye Institute at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, died in 1972.
She loved to travel, and in 1976 set off alone on a trip around the world on behalf of the newly established World Federation of Friends of Museums. She had been a founder of the organization, and also served as its president and vice president.
During the 1960s and 1970s, she was a member of the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Women’s Committee, she also served as president of the Museum Volunteers.
She was a co-organizer in 1973 of the Volunteer Committee of Art Museums, which hosted a joint conference between the Baltimore Museum of Art and what is now The Walters Art Museum.
In 1979, she married Robert W. Sharp, an electrical engineer. She and her second husband were frequent participants on trips that were organized by the Friends of the American Wing of the Baltimore Museum of Art. Mr. Sharp died in 2017. Mrs. Sharp enjoyed antiques collecting, bagpipes, poodles, birds, swimming and attending the opera. Her favorite baseball teams, family members said, were the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago Cubs.
She was an accomplished conversationalist and enjoyed the company of a wide circle of friends. She lived on Gittings Avenue for many years.
Mrs. Sharp became a centenarian on May 10, 2018, and shortly thereafter told someone who asked about her secret of longevity: “Take a nap every day and don’t go to bed angry.”
“She also had a very positive attitude and would say, ‘If you can’t fix something, then let it go,’” said a daughter, Carole Naquin of Montpelier, Vt. “She had been quite athletic when she was young. She was not a big drinker, ate moderately, and liked root vegetables.”
At Mrs. Sharp’s request, no services will be held.
In addition to her daughter, she is survived by two sons, Stuart Naquin of Hampden and David Naquin of Albuquerque, N.M.; another daughter, Susan Naquin of Lawrenceville, N.J.; four grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.