Mary H. Curry

Mary H. Curry, most recently of Wilmington, NC, passed away with her family by her side on 4 September 2023 at the age of 73. Her life was cut short by CANVAS, a rare and only recently characterized neurodegenerative disease for which there is currently no treatment.

Mary was born on 13 October 1949 to the late Stuart W. and Helen Auger Harper, a grocer and schoolteacher, respectively. She grew up in the tiny town of Eudora, Arkansas in the Mississippi River Delta, amid cotton and soybean fields. She graduated from Eudora High School in 1967 and continued on to Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Louisiana, where she studied elementary education and met her future husband Charles at a water fountain during their sophomore year. Mary and Charles were married in 1972 and moved to Longview, Texas, where they would spend the next twenty-seven years and raise their children, attending Oakland Heights Baptist Church and later First Baptist Church. Mary was a librarian and educator, working at a succession of local elementary schools including White Oak, Ware, and Bramlette. Charles’s work meant a move to Kingsport, Tennessee in 1999, where she continued her career as a librarian at John Sevier Middle School, and where they would remain until 2004. Retirement brought them to North Carolina to be nearer their daughter in the Charlotte area, and finally to Wilmington in 2021, where Mary and Charles spent time in Wrightsville Beach before becoming part of the Davis Community.

Mary’s sweet nature, intelligence, dignity, and dogged determination in the face of an inexorable and baffling decline were plainly evident to everyone who knew her. She loved her husband of fifty-one years, who cared for her steadfastly around the clock, as well as her children Anna, also of Wilmington, and Alan (Jessica) and granddaughter Laura of Weston, Connecticut and Greenwich, Connecticut, as well as legions of friends, students, and others she encountered. A stranger was never a stranger for long.

In addition to her immediate family, Mary is survived by her sister, Hilda Harper Grafton (Edward) of Ruston, Louisiana, and many other extended family members and friends from all over the country who loved and will miss her dearly.

In memory and honor of Mary, the Currys have partnered with The Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital in Australia to create a first-of-its-kind CANVAS Research Fund that will enable the work of David Szmulewicz, Associate Professor and founding head of their Balance Disorders & Ataxia Service, who first characterized CANVAS in 2011 and continues to conduct groundbreaking research into this insidious and rare condition. In time, research outcomes could include improved detection, diagnosis and management of CANVAS, and ultimately, the development of treatment options and/or a cure. For further details or to donate, please contact Mary’s son at alan.curry@gmail.com, or Olivia Myeza, Director of Philanthropy and Fundraising, The Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, East Melbourne, Australia at olivia.myeza@eyeandear.org.au.

Please leave memories and condolences for Mary’s family by signing the Tribute Wall below.

Wilmington Funeral & Cremation – Wilmington Chapel – 1535 S. 41st Street Wilmington, NC 28403 910.791.9099