Mary Marvin Breckinridge Patterson
Birth: 2 Oct 1905 New York, New York County (Manhattan), New York, USA
Death: 11 Dec 2002 (aged 97) Washington, District of Columbia, District of Columbia, USA
Burial: Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, District of Columbia, District of Columbia, USA
Plot: Section 2
Memorial #: 35099884
Bio: Born in New York City in 1905 she was the daughter of Isabella Goodrich and attorney John Cabell Breckinridge. Her maternal grandfather was inventor / industrialist Benjamin Franklin (B.F.) GOODRICH. Her paternal great-grandfather was John Caball Breckinridge (D-Ky.), vice president of the United States (1856-?60), presidential candidate opposing Abraham Lincoln in 1860, a general in the Confederate States Army, and Secretary of War of the Confederacy.
She is survived by one daughter, Patricia Marvin Patterson of Kingston, N.H.; one grandson, Ian C. Patterson of Shepherdstown, W.Va.; one niece, Isabella Goodrich Breckinridge of Washington, D.C.; and one nephew, Dr. John C. Breckinridge of Lakewood, Colo.
Her son, Mark Julian Patterson and three brothers, Cabell, Chad and Robert Breckinridge, predeceased her.
One of America's most colorful and generous women, Mary Marvin Breckinridge Patterson, 97, of York, Washington, D.C., and St. Leonard, Md., died at her home in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 11, 2002.
The widow of the late Ambassador Jefferson Patterson, she had been honored frequently for her career as a cinematographer, journalist, photographer, and broadcaster before their marriage in 1940. After marriage she served with her husband who had foreign service assignments in Berlin, Belgium, Egypt, the U.N. Special Committee on the Balkans, Greece, and in Uruguay, where he served as United States ambassador.
While in Berlin before America entered World War II, and until forbidden by the Germans, she and her husband, under the auspices of the Red Cross, visited German camps holding Allied prisoners of war. The Germans knew of her journalistic skills because for seven months after the outbreak of war she had made standard setting radio broadcasts from various European capitals for CBS "News of the World" with Edward R. Murrow in London, Tom Grandin in Amsterdam, with Eric Sevareid in Paris and William L. Shirer in Berlin. Twice she was on the last train out of a nation as World War II developed; Amsterdam to Paris as the Netherlands fell and Paris to Genoa as France fell.
Her career began in 1930 as a cinematographer making a film on her cousin Mary Breckinridge?s Frontier Nursing Service as it brought medical care by horseback to poverty-stricken areas of Kentucky. Her black-and-white silent film, "The Forgotten Frontier" has been cited as a classic by the American Film Institute. After studying still photography under Clarence White in New York City she was established as a professional photographer with photographs and illustrated articles appearing in Life, Vogue, Harper?s Bazaar, Town and Country, Junior League and many other magazines and metropolitan newspapers. Many of them published her pictures of a 1932 trip from Capetown to Cairo which she and her friend, Olivia Stokes had taken with Canon and Mrs. Anson Phelps Stokes.
Assignments to cover the Lucerne Music Festival for Town and Country and a Nazi rally in Nuremberg for Life took her to Europe where she renewed her friendship with Murrow. Each had served as president of the National Student Federation of America, which Mrs. Patterson had helped found while still a student at Vassar. Before graduating in 1927, she had her debut in New York and had been presented at the Court of St. James in London. Following her graduation, she spent a year at her family homes in New York City; York; and Santa Barbara, Calif., studying multiple flash photography and history at the New School for Social Research and learning to play polo, herd cattle and fly airplanes. In 1929 she became the first female pilot licensed in Maine.
Her first years in Washington, 1930-32, were spent as an intern for her godmother and cousin, Congresswoman Isabella Selmes Greenway (D-Ariz.), and as secretarial assistant to Jouett Shouse, chairman of the Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee. But being paid for pictures of the trip through Africa and the following weeks she and Olivia spent alone touring Palestine, Turkey and France convinced her to make a career of photography and writing. With her marriage, that professional career ended at the specific request of the U.S. State Department. She continued, however, to write articles for the benefit of United States interests where she and her husband served and to provide advice to the wives of diplomats and the State Department, an unusual role for a diplomat?s wife in those days.
After her husband?s death in 1977, she began what she called "decollecting" and what her friends knew as "quiet philanthropy." She served on the boards of several institutions including the Frontier Nursing Service, the Textile Museum, National Symphony Orchestra, Meridian House International, International Student House and the Women?s Committees of the Smithsonian Institution and the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the International Committee of the Folger Shakespeare Library. She was a major financial supporter and donor of art and her photography work to these organizations and to the Library of Congress, American News Women?s Club, Dayton Art Institute, English Speaking Union, IONA Senior Services, Kennedy Center, St. Albans School, Society of Woman Geographers, U.S. Capital Historical Society, University of Kentucky, Vassar College, WETA, several pro-choice organizations and many other organizations. In 1985 she created The MARPAT Foundation which continues to make grants within the greater Washington Metropolitan area.
In 1974 she gave to Bowdoin College for use as the Breckinridge Public Affairs Center her family estate in York, which has been built in 1905 by her grandmother. In 1983 she donated her and her husband?s 550-acre farm on the Patuxent River in Calvert County to the state of Maryland to be known as the Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum. It is a rich environmental and archeological site, which includes artifacts of native American life over 9,000 years, the first European settlers, a battle of the War of 1812 and early-American agriculture. The MARPAT Foundation founded more recently by Mrs. Patterson has been the source of gifts to many Washington area museums, galleries, environmental and historical organizations, and cultural and social service groups.
OBIT; The NY Weekly
Family Members
Parents
John Cabell Breckinridge 1870-1941
Isabella Goodrich Breckinridge 1874-1961
Spouse
Jefferson Patterson 1891-1977
Siblings
Joseph Cabell Breckinridge 1902-1928
Charles David Goodrich Breckinridge 1907-1957
Robert Breckinridge 1912-1975
Children
Mark Julian Patterson 1950-1985
Maintained by: Mark Peebles (46514135)
Originally Created by: Dolores Davidson (46872356)
Added: 24 Mar 2009
URL: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/35099884/mary-marvin-patterson
Citation: Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/35099884/mary-marvin-patterson : accessed 05 May 2022), memorial page for Mary Marvin Breckinridge Patterson (2 Oct 1905–11 Dec 2002), Find a Grave Memorial ID 35099884, citing Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, District of Columbia, District of Columbia, USA ; Maintained by Mark Peebles (contributor 46514135) .
