In Loving Memory

Mary Agnes Browne Cohill
School Teacher for 30 years
and
Mother of 12



November 25, 1917 - April 9, 2006

Click to view program from
Mass of Christian Burial


 


Mary Agnes Browne Cohill, Mother of twelve children and retired Baltimore County Teacher died peacefully of complications on Sunday, April 9, 2006, at St. Elizabeth’s Nursing Home.  The Catonsville and Hancock Maryland resident was 88.

Borne and raised in Mount Airy, North Carolina, she was an excellent student.  She received an academic scholarship to Saint Joseph’s College in Emmitsburg, Maryland.  In 1937, she graduated with honors, and received her Bachelors Degree in Arts (BA).  A year later, she married James Andrew Cohill of Hancock Maryland.  Unfortunately, James Andrew Cohill, her husband, died in 1961 from cancer, and left Mary Agnes with twelve (12) children to raise.

Remarkably, and despite the enormous pressure of raising twelve children, she went back to work as an elementary school teacher, and completed her work in graduate studies receiving her Masters Degree in Education in 1972 from Towson University.  She retired in 1983 from teaching at Bedford Elementary School in Pikesville, Baltimore County, after teaching for over 30 years.

An avid gardener, who loved to read, she was a very religious person, and attended masses weekly as a member of St. Mark Church in Catonsville, and St. Peter’s Church in Hancock, Maryland.

She was an extraordinary woman and an incredibly positive force.   She was able to offer not only her children but also her classroom students’ strength of conviction, leadership skill, tremendous ethics, and the virtues of hard work.  “She was respected and loved by so many because she gave her life for others, particularly her family,” said Mrs. Regina Miller and Mrs. Agnes Martin, two of her daughters.  “She was the picture of strength that held the family together after her husband died at such a young age.  With little to live on, she put the entire family on her back and gave us all she had,” said her oldest son, Robert Cohill of Catonsville.

Mrs. Cohill is survived by her twelve children; Robert A. Cohill of Catonsville, William L. Cohill of Naples, Florida, Mary Helen Horn of Perryville, Maryland, Jean Miller of St. Mary’s, Maryland, Catherine Gallagher of Chicago, Illinois, James Andrew Cohill, Jr. of Catonsville, Benjamin Cohill of Falls Church Virginia, Agnes Martin of Catonsville,  Marguerite Branch of Richmond, Virginia, Charles Phillip Cohill of Richmond, Virginia, Stephen Cohill of Timonium, and Patrick Cohill of Baltimore, Maryland.  She also has thirty-one (26) grandchildren and ten (10) great grandchildren.

Emails may be sent to the family by clicking here.

More  pictures of Mary Agnes Cohill