Mary "Mollie" Heist

Mary “Mollie” Hoary Heist, 75, of Crownsville, Maryland, passed away peacefully of lung disease at The Johns Hopkins Hospital on November 29, 2025, surrounded by family.

Born in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, Mollie grew up in Wilkes Barre and nearby Mountain Top. In an Irish Catholic family full of “Marys,” she quickly became “Molly” and, in her early teens, changed the spelling to “Mollie” to further express her individuality.

Her brother Joe was born with cerebral palsy four years after her. Becoming a big sister to Joe significantly shaped her life experience. It was said that Joe wouldn't be Joe without Mollie and Mollie wouldn’t be Mollie without Joe. She remained her brother's biggest protector/advocate, and source of comfort and love.

At age 16, Mollie moved to Maryland with her family. There, she was lucky enough to make friends that she kept for the rest of her life, creating a chosen family. In 1968, she was in the first class to graduate from Potomac High School in Prince Georges County.

She soon began a rewarding career in information technology and software development, where she quickly became a manager who directly supported both domestic and international clients.

She met her husband Ken through the Atlantis Rangers Scuba Club and they were married in 1986. Before starting a family, they skied and traveled around the U.S. and Europe. In 2019, during one of her visits to her daughter, who lives in Switzerland, she returned to Grindelwald, where she skied in the 1980s.

Their daughter Kathleen was born in 1990. And in Mollie’s words, “Oh boy, was it so fun. Turns out we were the perfect old couple to have a child.”

She built her daughter a childhood full of creativity. Over the years, she sewed nearly every one of Kathleen’s childhood Halloween costumes and had a million creative and crafty ideas to fill their days.

Mollie was also generous with her creative talents, teaching her daughter and her friends how to sew in an informal, in-home “sewing camp.” And she always volunteered her services to make costumes for school plays and later the Peabody Preparatory Ballet Program, including four historically accurate, ankle-length Romantic tutus.

In 2015, Mollie and Ken found a second home in Neavitt on the Eastern Shore, a “self-selecting retirement community” as she described it. She loved the people, the light and open air, and her beloved dahlia gardens.

Throughout her life, she took on outsized projects by choice or by circumstance. Whether she was advocating for her brother, managing a team at work, volunteering at her daughter’s school, leading a civic association, sewing intricate costumes, cooking elegant meals, or growing flowers, Mollie approached every challenge with determination and love. She didn't just show up; she protected, she brought creative ideas to life, and she cared deeply.

She is preceded in death by her parents, Joseph F. Hoary and Mary Connors Hoary. She is survived by her husband of 39 years, Ken; her daughter Kathleen Grimstad and son-in-law Jordan Grimstad; her grandchildren Maeve and Vera; and her brother Joseph P. Hoary.

A Celebration of Life will be held in July 2026. Contributions in Mollie’s memory can be made to Bello Machre https://bellomachre.org, Paul Newman’s Camp Boggy Creek https://www.boggycreek.org or the charity of your choice.