Mary Crandall, 96, helped start Emory’s Senior University

Into her 90s, Mary Laird Crandall still looked on life as an ever-unfolding story. She kept flipping the pages to each new chapter — curious to see what twists in the story line lay ahead.

Forward momentum was the engine that drove her life, and she used that drive to reach out to others.

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After Mary Laird Crandall was widowed and living in an assisted living home, she fell in love again and remarried at 92.

With her first husband, the late Rev. Sam Laird, she helped launch Emory University’s Senior University in 1979. She recognized that there were so many people, like her, whose intellectual curiosity was still on fire despite snowy hair on their heads.

Then when she was widowed and living in an assisted living home, she fell in love again. Her second marriage at 92 brought a coda of unexpected happiness to her already rich narrative.

“She demonstrated how to always stay open to what life can bring,” said her daughter Dr. Susan Laird of Sandy Springs. “She wasn’t one to get depressed or dwell on the past.”

The memorial service for Mrs. Crandall is 2 p.m. Wednesday at King’s Bridge Retirement Community. Mrs. Crandall, 96, of Atlanta died of complications from congestive heart failure Saturday at Hospice Atlanta. The body was donated to Emory University School of Medicine.

Mrs. Crandall balanced her focus on the future with a down-to-earth practicality. The Atlanta native majored in mathematics at Agnes Scott College and taught for 18 years at Fernbank Elementary School.

Her math classes were grounded with examples of how math figured into everyday life. She didn’t linger on high-minded theory. She drew on real-life situations and taught students how to write a check, how to balance a budget and how to fill out an income tax return.

“She really treated her students like grown-ups,” her daughter said. “And she would share lots of personal stories with them to liven up what they were learning.”

After her first husband retired as Emory’s director of religious life and international student adviser, the couple pitched in and helped create its Senior University program. He taught courses while she worked behind the scenes. In 1984, they won a DeKalb County outstanding senior citizens award for their work.

“There were already a number of organizations offering crafts classes and social events for seniors, but Mother and Dad really wanted to stress the importance of lifelong learning,” her daughter said.

“They were just astounded by the reception in the community because there were so many retired people who were hungry to keep learning,” she said.

Mrs. Crandall enrolled in politics, economics, art history and current events classes — anything to keep her intellectually challenged.

“When she’d walk into the class, she’d light up the room, and everybody just loved her because she was always smiling and happy and upbeat,” said her friend Elizabeth Smith of Atlanta.

“She was beautiful and would have been attractive to any man, no matter what age she was — always well-groomed and well-dressed, with jewelry to match,” Ms. Smith said.

After she fell in love with a fellow retirement community resident, “it was marvelous to see the joy in her heart,” Ms. Smith said.

“Even at that age,” she said, “Mary wanted to still learn and still be happy and still be important in other people’s lives.”

Survivors include her husband, Bill Crandall, of Atlanta; another daughter, Martha Talbott, of Decatur; three stepdaughters, Susan Hayward of Lewiston, Me., Sister Rebecca Crandall of Orleans, Mass., and Patricia Bloch of Atlanta; and one granddaughter.