Funeral services were held Monday at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Easton for Mary O?Toole Etchells, a world champion sailor who founded a successful women?s sportswear manufacturing company. Interment followed in Oxford Cemetery.
Etchells died Nov. 28 at her home in Easton. She was 85.
“One of the beautiful things about Mary was that she was so kind,” said Robert Shattuck, a neighbor in Shipshead Creek and longtime family friend. “She was exceedingly kind to her workers and kind to everybody. That was Mary.”
Etchells was born Jan. 30, 1921, in Baltimore, and graduated from the College of New Rochelle in New York. In 1941, she married E.W. “Skip” Etchells, a naval architect, boat builder and world-class sailor, who died in 1998 at 87. They were married for 57 years.
Etchells was the business manager at the company founded by her husband, Old Greenwich Boat Co., in Old Greenwich, Conn., where they enjoyed competitive sailing.
In 1951, at Gibson Island, the couple captured the world championship in the Star class of racing sailboats. Etchells is the only woman to win a Star class championship. The couple was featured in Sports Illustrated magazine in the mid-1950s.
In later years, with her friend and neighbor, Barbara Reynes, Etchells founded Meadowbank Inc., a manufacturer of women?s sportswear.
“Mary had a tremendous eye for color,” Shattuck said. “She was one of the first people to come out with those fancy pants for men and a [reversible] wrap-around skirt for women. All the women down here had them.”
Shattuck said Etchells also had an interest in children, whom she encouraged to sail.
“The Junior Sailing Program was an avenue to get kids out sailing and helping them,” he said. “She spoke to kids about what it meant to be an international sailor.”
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in Etchells? name to the Tred Avon Yacht Club Junior Sailing Program, P.O. Box 337, Oxford, MD 21654.
