Mentor Mary P. Dougherty dies
From The Washington Post - Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2003
Mary Pearl Dougherty, 88, a retired Foreign Service secretary who for decades was an unofficial counselor and mentor to young black Foreign Service officers, died of cancer Nov. 13 at the Methodist Home in Washington.
Ms. Dougherty retired from the Foreign Service in 1974 after 30 years, during which her postings included Liberia, South Vietnam, the Central African Republic, Zaire, France, Germany, and Romania.
In these posts, she sought out young black officers, many of whom were overseas for the first time, took them under her wing and offered advice and counsel on a variety of official and unofficial matters.
Harriet L. Elam-Thomas, a career Foreign Service officer who in 1999 was named ambassador to Senegal, said Ms. Dougherty was a friend and mentor for 40 years, beginning in the 1960s in Paris. Her counsel ranged from advice on how to deal with being homesick over the Christmas holidays to the right glasses for serving cognac at dinner parties, Elam-Thomas said.
Ms. Dougherty was born in Alabama and came to the Washington area in the 1930s. She studied psychology at American University.
She was a secretary to Carter G. Woodson, worked in the War Department and later for the Scott and Pinkett real estate firms. In 1977, as a consultant to the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs, Ms. Dougherty coordinated and led a delegation to Senegal, the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, and Malawi.
She was a vice president of the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA, president of the African American Women's Association and a founding member of the Thursday Luncheon Group at the State Department.
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