2007
Edith McCoy Chappelear, 96, a onetime head of adoption for Montgomery County's social services department, died Nov. 6 at
the Knollwood retirement home in Washington. She had pneumonia.
Mrs. Chappelear, who also had a home in Chevy Chase, worked for the county's social services department in the 1960s and
1970s. After starting her career in Philadelphia in the 1930s, she briefly worked for the D.C. Health Department and Children's
Hospital.
She was born in San Francisco and raised mostly in Washington, where she was a 1928 graduate of Western High School.
She was a graduate of George Washington University, where she also received master's degrees in economics and social
work. She was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma social sorority and worked at the Hatchet student newspaper.
She married John A. Chappelear in 1940 and in the 1950s accompanied him on his Foreign Service assignments to London
and Vienna before returning to the Washington area in 1961.
In retirement, she and her husband owned and operated Antiques of Chevy Chase, a shop in Kensington. He died in 1985.
Her memberships included All Saints Episcopal Church in Chevy Chase, Kenwood Golf and Country Club in Bethesda as well
as book and film discussion groups and a breast cancer support group.
Survivors include two children, Susan Skramstad of Boulder, Colo., and John M. Chappelear of Great Falls; four grandchildren;
and seven great-grandchildren.
-- Adam Bernstein