Mary Entwistle Pennington
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Mary Pennington (Updike) Weatherall (January 26, 1930 - February 25, 2018) was a visual artist and the first wife of
John Updike John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth Tar ...
. Many of Updike's early characters were modeled after her, particularly in his short stories about the Maple family and his novel ''
Couples Couple or couples may refer to: *Couple, a set of two of items of a type *Couple (mechanics), a pair of force which are equal in magnitude but opposite in direction and separated by a perpendicular distance so that their line of action do not c ...
''. Weatherall was the mother of artist
Elizabeth Updike Cobblah Elizabeth Updike Cobblah (born 1955) is an American art teacher and ceramicist, painter, and illustrator in Massachusetts. She is the eldest child of author John Updike, and was the model for several of his characters. She is married to Tete Cobbla ...
and writer David Updike, and the maternal aunt of poet Molly Fisk.


Early life and education

Mary Entwistle Pennington was born on January 26, 1930, in
Braintree, Massachusetts Braintree () is a municipality in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is officially known as a town, but Braintree is a city with a mayor-council form of government, and it is considered a city under Massachusetts law. The populat ...
, to Unitarian minister Leslie Talbot Pennington and Elizabeth Entwistle Daniels, a Latin teacher. She had one sibling, a younger sister, Antoinette Pennington Fisk, and they grew up in Cambridge, where Weatherall attended the Shady Hill School and Buckingham Browne & Nichols School where she played field hockey and enjoyed ice skating. Weatherall graduated from
Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...
in 1952.


Life with John Updike

In 1953 she married John Updike, a Harvard student, who she met during an art class her senior year. After his graduation, they both studied art at
Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...
's Ruskin School of Drawing, where their first child, Elizabeth, was born. They lived in New York for two years while John wrote for the ''New Yorker'' and then moved to
Ipswich, Massachusetts Ipswich is a coastal town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 13,785 at the 2020 census. Home to Willowdale State Forest and Sandy Point State Reservation, Ipswich includes the southern part of Plum Island. A res ...
, in 1957, where they raised their four children, Elizabeth, David, Michael, and Miranda. Weatherall was active in the Civil Rights movement and participated in the 1965
Selma to Montgomery marches The Selma to Montgomery marches were three Demonstration (protest), protest marches, held in 1965, along the highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery. The marches were organized by Nonviolence, nonvi ...
. She and Updike separated in 1974 and divorced in 1976.


Later life and career

After her divorce, she worked for ''
Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 ...
'' reading poetry and studied at Montserrat College of Art. In 1982, she married longtime family friend Robert Weatherall. A recent widower, Weatherall had started as an academic in England and continued his career at
MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...
. Mary was a popular landscape painter as well as being active in the civil rights movement, participating in one of the Selma marches. Shortly after celebrating her 88th birthday with family at the historic Hart House, Weatherall came down with pneumonia. Her children, seven grandchildren, and great-grandson gathered before she died in her home on February 25, 2018. Many of her papers are held at
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
.


References

{{reflist 20th-century American women painters 21st-century American women painters 20th-century American painters 21st-century American painters Painters from Massachusetts People from Ipswich, Massachusetts People from Braintree, Massachusetts Radcliffe College alumni