Mary deSurville McDuffie
4-21-23 – 11-26-24
Mary deSurville McDuffie was born in 1923 in San Francisco to Emile deSurville of San Francisco and Helen Virginia Sutherland of Sistersville, West Virginia. One of three children, she attended Miss Burke’s School together with her sister Virginia. The family moved to Pasadena in the later 1930’s where her father became President of the Sylmar Packing Corporation. Mary continued her education at the Polytechnic School and graduated from the Westridge School for Girls in 1941. In 1943 Mary married Norman “Mac” MacLeod of Pasadena and moved to Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida where Mac was a Marine Corps flight instructor. Their daughter Virginia was born in November 1944.
Following the end of World War II, Mac, Mary and Virginia returned to Pasadena and Mac and Mary ultimately separated. Mary met Malcolm “Bud” McDuffie, the son of William C. McDuffie and Mary Skaife McDuffie of Featherhill Ranch, Santa Barbara and the Old Mill in San Marino. Mary and Bud were married in December 1951. They had two children together – Cynthia (November 1952) and Malcolm Duncan (May 1955). Bud worked as an executive at Mohawk Petroleum and Mary and her partner, Maybel Bayle Wolfe, conducted a residential interior decorating business, Mary McDuffie Interiors.
In the early years Mary and Bud’s life revolved around their house on Miramar Beach in Montecito where the family spent weekends and summered together with their two black labs Mo and Dirk. They also enjoyed retriever trials, hunting and fishing together, but above all their passion was for horses. In 1960 Mary and Bud purchased an undeveloped four acre parcel on Picacho Road in Montecito and over the next forty years they built and enjoyed their beloved Rancho Campo Verde. Virtually every weekend was spent riding, planting, harvesting, and teaching their children to ride, plant, water, pull weeds, and trap gophers. After Bud’s retirement from the oil industry in the early 1980’s, Mary and Bud raised Spanish Andalusian horses as a hobby and as a business. Campo Verde was the also site of the annual Cousin’s Weekend with Mary’s sister Virginia Muller and her family, as well as daughter Virginia Faraoni and her family from Florence, Italy.
Mary’s good taste and skill at decorating and gardening was evident in abundance at Campo Verde and at their home in San Marino. Mary was an active member of the Pasadena Garden Club, the Valley Hunt Club and the Town Club. She was also active with the Junior League and the Pasadena Guild of the Children’s Hospital.
In 1998 Mary and Bud reluctantly sold Campo Verde and moved to the Birnham Wood Golf Club community. Following Bud’s passing in 2009 Mary moved to Casa Dorinda retirement community in Montecito where she lived until her passing. Mary is survived by her three children, six grandchildren and six great grandchildren. She was a woman of great taste, poise and charm.
The family would like to particularly thank all the wonderful caregivers who watched over her in her later years.