Mary K. Rittenhouse (nee Dougherty)
(12/30/1955-4/23/2020) Mary K. Rittenhouse (nee Dougherty), age 64 of Newtown Square Pa, formerly of Conshohocken and Boyertown, died peacefully on April 23, 2020 after a more than 30-year courageous battle with chronic health issues.
Beloved daughter of the late James D. and Bernadine A, Dougherty (nee Coyle) of Malvern, Pa., Mary was raised in Paoli, Pa and moved to Malvern in high school years. She attended grade school at St Norbert’s School in Paoli and was a 1974 graduate of Archbishop John Carroll High School for Girls in Radnor, PA. where she very active and exceled in many sports, participating in basketball, and softball and field hockey all four years. After high school Mary continued to be actively involved in sports and served as pitcher for several community and after work softball teams as well as played rugby for the Philadelphia Women’s Rugby Club. She also volunteered as coach for St Norbert girls’ basketball team for a several years. She enjoyed giving back.
Mary worked for Tyler Griffin Company in Paoli after graduation and then worked for Shared Medical Systems in Malvern for 10 years as a customer support representative. She left SMS in the early 90’s due to illness.
We will all miss Mary and her loving and caring heart. She was a kind and compassionate wife, daughter, sister and friend. She is survived by her 5 siblings: Kevin Dougherty (Jill) of West Chester, Dennis Dougherty (Lynn) of Norristown, Shelley Krasnoff (Ed) of Perkasie, Jim Dougherty (Joan) of East Haven, CT and Terry Dougherty of West Chester and her many nieces and nephews and grand nieces and nephews. She was a friend of Bill W’s for 40 years.
Her greatest joy in life was being with dogs, in particular the many rescue dogs she raised and cared for in her adult life. In recent years, she developed an equally great passion for therapy and services dogs and she herself was on a waiting list to be matched to a service dog from Susquehanna Dog Services when her health sadly deteriorated. She was a proud advocate for the adoption of rescues and for bringing awareness to the important work performed by therapy and service dogs, especially for those suffering from PTSD, anxiety and other health disorders. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to www.keystonehumanservices. org/susquehanna-service-dogs/ in her memory.
A private Funeral Mass will be streamed lived on Thursday, April 30th, starting 10:00am. Relatives and friends can watch by going to the following link: https://www.facebook.com/AllevaFuneral/
Arrangements by the Alleva Funeral Home, Inc. Paoli, PA.