Falmouth, ME – Marily Wilson, 88, died July 3, 2026 at Legacy Memory Care in Falmouth, Maine.
Marily, named Mary Emily Dwight but only ever known as Marily, was born in Holyoke, Mass., to a newspaper family helmed by her redoubtable grandmother, Minnie Ryan Dwight. Minnie had influence, and family lore has it that upon the birth of her only granddaughter, Minnie ordered that all the city’s church bells would ring.
And ring they should. The heavens will know that until the end, Marily was gracious, kind, wry and generous. She could also be a bit tart.
Marily went to Holyoke public schools until attending the Walnut Hill School and Wellesley College.
As a mother raising children in Concord, N.H., in the 1960s, she involved herself in programs that support the education of young children, Planned Parenthood, the League of Women Voters, and devotedly, the Concord Public Library. There is no doubt that she read every British mystery ever published, two times over and backwards, thanks to the library.
She ardently believed in the right for women to choose.
But what brought Marily to Concord was her marriage to George Wilson, and his subsequent job at the Concord Monitor.
It was an improbable match. He was an impoverished Southerner who had to suspend his Harvard education to make money for tuition, which he did by working for the society section of the Washington Post. As the story goes, while in Washington, D.C., for her job at the Congressional Quarterly, Marily was on a stroll and encountered a charming man. It seemed there was a need for a hand in a bridge game. Marily could play. George claimed he could, too, but that was a lie, because he was absolutely terrible at cards.
Despite that chasm, they fell in love and married, and were truly well-met in wit and intellect. Put the cards aside.
Marily and George moved to Concord in 1961, when George began his career at the Monitor. The newspaper was part of Marily’s family newspaper company; Minnie, her grandmother, was one of America’s first women newspaper publishers. The company continues in the family.
Marily never loved the New England winters, the strenuous hikes and excursions that George devised – and she absolutely hated the sailing phase – but she was always, always game.
She met the Pope, she met presidents, she met fancy people. That was all good fun, but what she really wanted to do was sit by a pool and read a book. (And smoke, but that had to stop.)
Marily was gracious, always. She had friendships of decades. She issued terrific and often terrifying bon mots. We will miss her terribly.
Marily is survived by Abigail and Aaron Julien and their children Isaac (Elizabeth), Asa and David; Geordie and Pilar Wilson-Olivo and their children Rowena, Ruby and Liam; and Elizabeth and Chris Dutton and their children Abby (Evan) and Sadie (Hamilton).
She was predeceased by her husband, George, and her parents Dorothy and William Dwight, brother William Dwight, and brother Donald Dwight.
There will be a private family ceremony in her memory.
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