Mary Smith Elwell Obituary

Mary Ellen Smith Elwell died 4 July 2025 at the age of 95. She was born in 1929 in Baltimore to the Rev Asbury Smith, a Methodist minister, and Rachel Wilson Smith. She graduated from Towson High and Western Maryland College (now McDaniel) and then began life as a social worker with the Baltimore Department of Public Welfare. Mary Ellen married Ronald Elwell who she had met through church while he was still a student at the University of Maryland and she was working on her MSW at the University of Pennsylvania. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in Social Work from the University of Maryland in 1984.
Ron and Mary Ellen raised their three children in Woodlawn where she continued to work part-time until the birth of her second child After four years as a stay-at-home mom she was back to work at the Methodist Board of Child Care. In 1969 Mary Ellen began a ne:w phase of her career as a professor in the Sociology Department at Western Maryland College teaching social work courses While teaching she also helped found and worked in the Carroll County Rape Crisis Center, was instrumental in establishing the county Child Sexual Abuse Treatment Center, and served on the boards of several local social service agencies. She was active in the Council of Social Work Education including serving a term as President of the Baccalaureate Programs Director group. After seventeen years at Western Maryland, Mary Ellen moved on to Salisbury State College (now Salisbury University) where she taught until retiring in 1995.
Ron and Mary Ellen moved to Westminster after their youngest graduated from high school, then bought a condo in Ocean City after the job change and alternated weekends between Westminster and OC during the school year. Mary Ellen vacationed at the beach with her parents while growing up, repeated the experience with her children, and later with children and grandchildren every summer. They moved to Asbury Methodist Home in Solomons in 1997 where she became a rape counselor in Charles County. Ron died in 2009 after fifty-seven years of marriage. She is survived by her sister Rachel Sweet, her daughters Ellen Lutrey and Laura, her son Ron, seven grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.
Services will be private. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to the Asbury Foundation Solomons Community or to the Dr. Mary Ellen Elwell '50 Distinguished Social Work Award at McDaniel College.