Edythe Maxey Clark

Edythe Lee Maxey was born in Boston, Massachusetts, but moved with her widowed mother to Washington, D.C. in 1934. After graduation from Woodrow Wilson High School, Edythe attended Temple Secretarial School and during World War II held several jobs, principally as a secretary with the Automotive Safety Foundation. In 1946 she married Eugene Evans Clark, a graduate of the University of Maryland and George Washington University.

In 1951 Gene was assigned as Press Officer at the American Embassy in London where they remained until the end of 1955 when they returned to the United States. They had sold their first home in Arlington, Virginia, several years previously, then purchased a house in Bethesda, Montgomery County, Maryland, which they owned for forty years. Edythe worked at their Bethesda church office for several years and then was employed by the Register of Wills at the Montgomery County Courthouse. Because of her special interest in historical research, one of the services she performed was answering genealogical requests and helping people who came into the courthouse.

From 1970, Edythe devoted most of the next ten years to the research and writing of the Maxey history in 1980, tracing eight lines from 1691 Virginia. Subsequent research produced editions in 1987 and 2000. Edythe is well known among older genealogists for her committment to using documented information and referencing her sources of family records. Her last publisher, Gateway Press of Baltimore, uses her Maxey book as an example for new genealogists.

(Selected from THE MAXEYS OF VIRGINIA, Third Edition, 2000, p.537, and personal knowledge.)

H. David Maxey 2012