Mary Matilda Shaughnessy, a business entrepreneur who co-owned and operated a moving and storage business, died of complications of a fractured tibia on April 25 at her St. Michaels home. She was 101 and had lived in Butchers Hill.

Born in Baltimore and raised in Parkville, she was the daughter of Robert Gordon Everett and his wife, Gussie Virginia Carter, who owned the Carney Tavern. She was a 1939 Towson High School graduate and attended the University of Maryland, College Park.

In 1942, she married James Augustus May, and they raised eight children. After their marriage ended, she showed her independent nature and began selling homemade soap door-to-door. She later acquired the Marlyn Laundry in Middle River and the Bel Air Cleaners in Harford County. She then bought the Ruby Bleach Co. and operated the firm in a factory near the Shot Tower in downtown Baltimore.

“She ran the operation, including the plant’s conveyor belt,” said her son, Michael May.

In 1963, she married John Shaughnessy, a World War II veteran and retired Baltimore City Police Department detective. She and her husband founded Chesapeake Moving & Storage, which was later called Clipper Moving and Storage.

“She bought an old truck and a mover’s license and built the business up,” said her son, Michael. “She later befriended Mayor William Donald Schaefer and began to get Baltimore City work.

“She cared about the people who worked for her, but the business had its challenges. Making payroll was not always easy. One Friday, when the city government was slow to pay, she went to City Hall and demanded to be paid. She accomplished this and went to a bank, got the proper denominations of cash for the payroll and put everything in a paper bag.

“She then stopped for a hot dog at the Belair Market and called in from a pay phone to report she had the money. A few minutes later, she reached for a paper bag under the driver’s seat, where she normally placed it, and it was not there. She returned to the phone booth and found the bag,” her son said.

Her grandson, David Lapides, recalled that during the 1968 riots, when the city was temporarily disrupted by curfews, she paid her movers their wages by driving to bars where she knew they often met up and distributed the money.

After her children were grown, she and her husband, as empty nesters, found an old East Baltimore Street home facing Patterson Park and became active in the Butchers Hill neighborhood. They were part of an effort to do early renovations of the Patterson Park pagoda.

Mrs. Shaughnessy retired to Florida in the 1980s and later returned to Maryland and lived in St. Michaels.

Survivors include two daughters, Emily Hammontree, of Grand Junction, Colorado, and Mary Lapides, of Cockeysville; four sons, Richard May, of Sparks, Robert May, of St. Michaels, Jack May, of Fallston, and Michael May, of St. Michaels; two stepsons, Michael Shaughnessy, of California, and Barry Shaughnessy, of Baltimore; 24 grandchildren, 61 great-grandchildren, and 15 great-great-grandchildren. A son, James A. May Jr. died in 2023. Another son, William May died in 2016. Her husband died in 2015.

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