Tryon, NC - Susan Woodman McSherry died March 3, 2007 at Pardee Hospital in Hendersonville, N.C., of heart failure. She was 84 and lived in Tryon, N.C., for the past 18 years. Born in Cambridge, Mass., the daughter of Edgar F. and Josephine W. Woodman, Mrs. McSherry grew up in Concord, NH. A former resident of Strafford, Pa., Mrs. McSherry was the past executive director of the Green Circle Program, a human relations program affiliated with the Fellowship Commission and based in Philadelphia, Pa., that used story boards to teach race relations in racially troubled elementary schools nationwide. An accomplished writer of federal grants, she was able in her 15 years at Green Circle to obtain grants that allowed her to expand the program from an all-volunteer group to a professional educational organization with paid staff members in several inner-city school districts across the country. For her Green Circle efforts she was awarded the 1982 Human Rights Award by the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations. After retiring to Tryon in 1989 she became active in local civic groups tutoring underprivileged children and writing federal grants for a children's science program, the Red Cross and an effort to restore the 1854 Polk County Courthouse, which netted $10,000 for the committee planning the renovations. A life-long member of the Democratic Party, Mrs. McSherry was active in efforts to elect Democrats in Polk County and elsewhere in North Carolina. Mrs. McSherry was a graduate of the Katherine Gibbs School in Boston, Mass. She was a member of the Cosmopolitan Club of Philadelphia, and a member of the Antiques Club in Tryon and past president of the Garden Club there. She is survived by her husband of 62 years, Dr. Robert T. McSherry, M.D., of Tryon, her daughter, Jessica A. McSherry, of Valley Forge, Pa., and her son and daughter-in-law Robert W. and Carol N. McSherry, of Newtown Square, Pa. A memorial service will be held at 2:00 p.m .in the Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross in Tryon on Saturday, March 10. 2007, with Father Michael Doty officiating. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Thermal Belt Outreach Ministries , P.O. Box 834, Columbus, NC 28722. Interment will be in Blossom Hill Cemetery in Concord, N.H.
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