Mary Lincoln had several nicknames bestowed on her by family members; one was ‘The Mayor.’ 

An errand run to the Dartmouth bookstore could routinely take an hour and a half, as she stopped to speak with people she had grown to know, whether through her work or various volunteer efforts for boards or entities such as Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, the Town of Hanover Finance Committee, among many others.

“She knew everyone,” her youngest son, Brian Lincoln, said. “Virtually all the adults in town, business owners … she just knew everybody through her friendliness.” 

Son Chris Lincoln, echoed the sentiment, adding: “Her legacy will be about how she felt about other people — she loved people.”

Mary Lincoln out to dinner at age 90. Family members nicknamed Lincoln “The Mayor” because of how widely known she was in Hanover through her work and years of volunteering.

Another nickname was ‘The Energizer Bunny’ as she coordinated moves and even brought people to medical appointments in her 90s, among other endeavors. 

“She was just always going… She just had a lot of energy — she was always active, always engaged,” said Chris Lincoln. 

“It was like, keep up with Mary; she’ll leave you in the dust,” Brian Lincoln added. 

Mary Lincoln died at 97 on Feb. 12 from heart failure after a period of declining health. 

She was born on Oct. 7 1928 in Greenwich, Conn. to Charlotte Fahnestock and Thomas de Quartel Richardson III. At the age of two, her father left the family, and she lived with her maternal grandmother for a period before her mother became Greenwich’s first female realtor and moved Mary and her older brother, Tom, into a new home. 

Mary Lincoln in her Greenwich Academy portrait in 1946. Lincoln was a standout field hockey player at the school and also served as President of the Athletic Association and Vice President of her class during her time there.

Growing up, Mary attended Greenwich Academy, where she was not only a standout field hockey player, to the point she was offered a spot on a semi-pro team in Long Island, N.Y., after she graduated, but also president of the Athletic Association and vice president of her class. 

“My mother just always spoke so highly of Greenwich Academy. She loved going there. She said she got a great education there,” Chris Lincoln said. 

Despite being admitted to several colleges, Mary did not attend, choosing instead to care for her mother. After graduating from Greenwich Academy, she worked at a local school. She also took classes at the Merrill Business School and extension classes at the University of Connecticut.

Mary met the man she fell in love with, John Lincoln, when she was 18 at a formal dance at the Apawamis Club in Rye, N.Y. The pair were married two years later on Sept. 9, 1949. They eventually had three children: Peter, Chris, and Brian. 

“Long-term, they were well-matched… they were a good fit,” Chris Lincoln said.

Mary and John Lincoln on their wedding day on Sept. 9, 1949.

After living in New York, Connecticut, and even Greece for a time, Mary Lincoln got her first taste of Hanover during summers in the mid-1960s, while her husband worked as a teacher in Dartmouth College’s A Better Chance Program. 

During that period, Lincoln’s friendly nature shone through as she began to get to know people in the area, whether through tennis with locals or by speaking with some of the students who boarded at the college as part of the program. 

She moved to Hanover in 1969, when John Lincoln took a faculty position in the English Department at Dartmouth. 

Mary got her own job at the college as a member of the athletics ticket office and was eventually promoted to manager of the office. 

She did not stop climbing there — in the 1970s, then-Athletic Director Seaver Peters was instrumental in her being hired to be the Athletic Business Manager — the first woman to hold that role in the Ivy League. 

“She was very valuable, and she was one of the very few women in the athletic department — there were practically no women there, and she was one of the very few, and she was a steady force,” said Lu Martin, who worked in the President’s Office at the time and was a friend. 

“It really made a big difference to have a woman at that level, as she gradually moved into the more managerial level in the athletic department. It was very important as we were going co-educational and learning to have women at Dartmouth,” she said.

Lincoln, who also led the Ivy League Athletic Business Managers during annual meetings, held the position for about a decade and retired in 1988. That same year, the College Athletic Business Management Association (CABMA) honored her with the George Eldridge Distinguished Service Award.

The award is given “to members or former members of CABMA who have been an active member for a period of ten years and who have demonstrated outstanding service to CABMA and/or the field of intercollegiate athletics.” 

“She handled budgets, and that was a big job. She had to talk to strong-willed coaches, and she had to hold her ground, and if anybody could do it, it was Mary Lincoln,” said Davida Dinerman. 

Dinerman met Lincoln when she was a student at Dartmouth, and Lincoln filled in for the coach to bring the women’s tennis team on their spring trip.

“(I) just got to know her, little by little, that week — it wasn’t hard to love her, and then just fostered the relationship over the 40 years,” she said.

Thriving in a male-dominated area such as athletics only bolstered the idea that Lincoln was ahead of her time. 

Even in her younger days, she was bucking trends, opting not to become a debutante — something her family expected at the time.

“She didn’t believe in that sort of social hierarchy, that sort of exclusion, and that sort of elite attitude — she just didn’t buy it, and for her whole life she was like that … she just loved people for who they were,” Chris Lincoln said. 

She did not excel just in the athletics business world either. Notably, like her mother, Mary Lincoln had an eye for real estate, often renovating properties and making some money selling them. 

Over the course of her life, she had second homes in areas such as Cape Cod, among others, and made several moves in Hanover, Norwich, and at the Choate School in Connecticut, where John Lincoln worked, and she served as a “dorm mother” to students. 

If the Energizer Bunny nickname was any indication, Mary Lincoln did not merely kick her feet up during retirement. 

Mary Lincoln, left, holding her tennis racquet, with her sister-in-law Renee Lincoln in a garden in 1980.

Whether it was volunteering, playing tennis, or traveling — activities she often did even before retiring — she was always doing something. 

After her husband had an emergency medical situation in 1995, Lincoln served as his caregiver for 13 years before he passed in 2008. 

“She did a hell of a job because apparently his doctor had indicated with the surgery he needed… (it) was done with a material that would maybe last five years. He deserves credit because he had the spirit as well — they were a perfect match — she added seven years to his life; I really believe that,” Brian Lincoln said. 

In the early 2000s, the pair moved to the Greens at Hanover, where Mary Lincoln continued to apply her business acumen, serving as the condo association president. 

She not only lent a level head during disputes and a helping hand to those in need, but also recruited some of the earliest tenants, among other work. 

“You didn’t have to ask; you knew she was available to help… she never seemed like she sweated a bullet; she never seemed like you were putting her out to ask her to help,” Michael Vereline, the Greens’ Managing Partner at the time, said. 

“I could not have created the Greens and the success that it is 20 years later. It’s now been an association for 20 years, and she was vital in laying the foundation,” he said.

“She was just foundational in us, both from a business (perspective) but also creating the Greens as a community — it was her more than me,” he continued. 

After living at the Greens, Lincoln moved to Kendal at Hanover at 91 years old, where she would live for the rest of her life — albeit, unsurprisingly, not in the same unit. 

Even in her advanced age, Lincoln stayed involved, whether in the welcoming or the landscape committee, or working in the Attic, to name a few activities.

The Attic is a store in Kendal where residents can donate excess items, which are then sold, with the proceeds going to a fund to help residents, according to a friend of Lincoln’s, Marian Ulrich, who was also involved at the Attic. 

“We did everything together here. She was my bridge partner, which was fun — we just always got along; she was just an incredible person,” Ulrich said.  “She did not like to miss a thing — she was always available.” 

Throughout her life, Lincoln enjoyed many activities, such as needlepoint, woodworking, and gardening. As a night owl, she enjoyed her share of late-night sweets and could often be found playing Words With Friends and, according to Brian Lincoln, was not too shabby: “She kicked my ass,” he said.

The family held a widely attended celebration of her life at Kendal in March, underscoring Mary Lincoln’s reach in the community.

“She was the one and only; I know that’s a cliché — but really iconic,” Brian Lincoln said. “I was really touched by the turnout at her memorial … people just wanted to be there to honor her and share stories.”