Mary Elisabeth Dean, Ph.D., 90, passed away peacefully on June 11, 2024, in Red Bank, NJ.
She was born in Englewood, NJ in 1933, to Jesse P. and Marguerite A. (Jossier) Dean. She attended the Academy of the Holy Angels and The College of Saint Elizabeth (AB 1955). She was awarded a fellowship to attend Purdue University (MS 1957), where she met her first husband, Earle W. Orr, Jr., Ph.D. Their first daughter, Mary Siobhan Orr, died in infancy. They later had two more children together. Earle, a professor of economics and a transportation specialist, took a job in Dacca, East Pakistan (now Dhaka, Bangladesh). The family lived in Bangladesh for two years, during which time Mary Elisabeth worked as the Director of Counseling at the Dacca American Society School.
Mary Elisabeth returned to Middletown, NJ with her children in 1964. She got a job as a teacher and then a guidance counselor at Lloyd Road Middle School in Matawan, NJ. She was promoted to Guidance Counselor, Director of Guidance, and finally Director of Career Development for the Matawan-Aberdeen School District (1968-1980). She was also an instructor in the Graduate School of Education at Seton Hall University in West Orange, NJ from 1968-1970.