Mary U. Meader

MEADER, Mary U. Kalamazoo, Michigan Died March 16, 2008 at her home in Kalamazoo. Born Rachel Mary Upjohn in Kalamazoo in 1916, Mary Meader grew up on South Street in the now historic De Yoe house which still stands today. Her father, Harold Upjohn, was an executive of the Upjohn Company and later its vice president and general manager. She was one of eleven grandchildren of Dr. W. E. Upjohn, the company's founder. Her mother, Grace, was a former Canadian from Ontario who had moved to Kalamazoo as a child. Mary went to elementary school at Western Michigan University's Campus School and high school at the Knox School in New York State. She attended Smith College but left in 1935 after two years to marry Dr. Richard U. Light, a prominent Kalamazoo neurosurgeon and former military pilot. Two years later, in their single-engine Bellanca monoplane, the Lights began an epic six-month journey to the west coast of South America flying over the Andes to Rio de Janeiro, where they and their airplane boarded a freighter for Cape Town, South Africa. From there they flew their plane north the entire length of the African continent. In preparation for the trip, Mary took flying lessons and learned Morse code, so that she could serve as the co-pilot, navigator and radio operator. Most important of all her new skills was proficiency in aerial photography, for the purpose of the trip, sponsored by the American Geographical Society AGS, was to document Africa from the air. It was a truly pioneering journey and resulted in historic aerial photographs of such landmarks as Mt. Kilimanjaro, the Mountains of the Moon and the Pyramids of Giza for the Lights' book Focus on Africa, published by the AGS. Her photographs are now displayed in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. In 1965, after she and Dr. Light had divorced, she married Edwin Meader, a widower and Kalamazoo native then living in Ann Arbor. Following his retirement they moved back to Kalamazoo and lived for many years in a small 1832 farm house he had bought as a weekend retreat in the 1930s, later moving into Friendship Village. Although retaining an active interest in Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan, Ed's alma mater, they became very involved in Kalamazoo, and were major benefactors to the arts and education in both cities. Ed was an accomplished amateur harpsichordist and viola da gamba player, and she joined him in his love of music, learning to play the recorder with enough skill to enable her to perform with Kalamazoo's Early Music Society. They became important supporters of Fontana Chamber Arts, attending many concerts, and creating that organization's first endowment fund. Mary already had a major collection of pre-Columbia art, and she and Ed together acquired a significant collection of Japanese netsuke small carved figures. Both collections were donated to the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts during her life. Because of these and other endowment gifts, the KIA designated its library the Edwin and Mary Meader Library. They jointly received the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo's Theodore C. Cooper Award for Distinguished Volunteer Service medal in 2004. She and Ed also shared an interest in geography. He taught that subject first at Wayne State University and, after moving back to Kalamazoo, at Western Michigan University. She, because of her aerial photography of Africa, was a long-time member of the Society of Women Geographers, but was not active in the field. In 2005 and 2006, more than 50 years after her historic flight, she received two very belated recognitions of her contributions. In 2005, the Society of Women Geographers awarded her their Outstanding Achievement Award, granted annually to a member "who has made an outstanding contribution or service of lasting benefit to Science, the Arts, or Humanity." The next year, seven months after her 90th birthday, the American Geographical Society invited her to sign her name on its Fliers' and Explorers' Globe, a tradition begun in the l920s. According to the AGS, "Signers of the Fliers' & Explorers' Globe over the years are men and women who have explored certain places on earth for the first time in recorded history, reached new extremes of height or depth, pioneered new means of travel, or set aviation records. Their accomplishments have been made at great personal physical risk." Others invited to sign the globe include Charles Lindbergh, Neil Armstrong, Amelia Earhart, Edmund Hillary and John Glenn. Mary's own globe-signing honor was almost unprecedented. Because of her age, the AGS brought the globe to Kalamazoo for the signing ceremony, and then asked her to sign the globe twice, once over South America and once over Africa. Only three of the 79 previous signers had been invited to sign twice. The only other occasion on which the globe had left New York for a signing ceremony was when it was taken to the White House so that John Glenn could sign it in the presence of President Kennedy. Despite her age and the curvature of the globe, both of her signatures are bold and clear. Mary and Ed were major supporters of higher education and were instrumental in the establishment of Western Michigan University's Meader Rare Book Room and its W.E. Upjohn Center for the Study of Geographical Change. They also endowed Kalamazoo College's Classics Department. At the University of Michigan they made possible the W. E. Upjohn Exhibit Hall now under construction at the university's Kelsey Museum of Archaeology and the Rachel Upjohn Building which houses the university's pioneering Depression Center. The chairman of the medical school's department of psychiatry and executive director of the depression center holds the title of Rachel Upjohn Professor of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, a chair named in Mary's honor. Although preferring an inactive role in her many philanthropies, she served on the boards of the Kalamazoo Nature Center and the Harold and Grace Upjohn Foundation. She also served for many years on the board of the Upjohn Company. Mary's husband of 42 years, Ed, died in 2007. She is survived by her four sons, Christopher U. Light, Timothy Light and John Richard Light, of Kalamazoo, and Rudolph H. Light, of Ukiah, California, seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. A private family memorial will be held at a later date. Arrangements by Langeland Family Funeral Homes, Memorial Chapel, 622 S. Burdick St.