Mary Jane Layton Lippert, part of centuries-old Oyster Bay family, dies at 99

As a descendant of one of the oldest families in the Oyster Bay area, Mary Jane Layton Lippert was passionate about history and genealogy. And she put that interest to use as an active member of the Locust Valley Historical Society for three decades.

Lippert, whose Layton ancestors settled on the North Shore of what is now Nassau County in the 1700s, died March 9 at age 99 in Lanham, Maryland, in the cottage built for her on the property of her younger daughter Susan and son-in-law Harold Trapkin.

"She was very proud of her heritage with her family settling early on the North Shore," said Herb Schierhorst, president of the Locust Valley Historical Society, which Lippert served as secretary for many years.

"She was a Renaissance woman," Schierhorst said. "She was an artist. She made maps and hand-colored them. She made sketches of historical buildings. She would dig in an old bottle dump adjacent to her property and bring the bottles into the historical society. She was a tough lady."

Lippert, born July 14, 1925, was the second child of Gertrude and Peter N. Layton Jr. of Oyster Bay. Her father was a boatbuilder whose shop building near Oyster Bay Harbor on South Street is now used by the Oakcliff Sailing Center. He built rowboats, duckboats, clam boats, and most importantly, sailboats.

She spent many happy days sailing in the harbor in a boat her father had built.

"I learned to sail in the same boat," daughter Joan Indig said. "His boats were built to last."

"She grew up during the Great Depression, which had a long-lasting effect on her life," Susan Trapkin said of her mother. "When the sole of her shoe wore out, her mother would put cardboard inside the shoe to cover the hole. When the stitching wore out, they tied the shoe together with string. She was always frugal and never wasted anything."

When Mary Jane Layton graduated from Oyster Bay High School in 1943, her mother told her she had two career choices: librarian or teacher. She chose teacher and graduated cum laude from what was then known as Cortland State Teachers College in 1947. She taught primary school for several years in Bayville and upstate New York.

It was her love of sailing that led to her long and happy marriage. At the Bayville Boat Club, she met Joseph Lippert Jr. of Locust Valley, an aeronautical engineer at Grumman Aircraft in Bethpage. They were married on June 18, l949, and had two daughters, Joan in 1951 and Susan in l955. Her husband, an inveterate tinkerer who loved working on his classic Corvette that he bought new in 1959, died in 1999 at age 79. She relocated to Maryland in 2015 to live closer to daughter Susan.

"She was a quiet person and claimed to be shy, but her intelligence was not to be underestimated," said Indig. Those who knew Lippert described her as devoted to her family and one of the most positive and supportive people they had ever met.

"She was incredibly kind, caring, fun, loving, cheerful, supportive, and the best mother you could ever want," Trapkin said.

Lippert was a Girl Scout leader and Sunday school teacher who enjoyed gardening, calligraphy and sewing. She made many beautiful hand-hooked rugs.

Besides Joan and her husband Ben Indig of upstate Hastings-on-Hudson, and Susan and husband Harold Trapkin, Lippert is survived by four grandsons, six great-grandchildren, and 10 nieces and nephews.

A private service followed by burial at Brookville Cemetery will take place at a later date. In lieu of flowers, the family asked that donations be made to the Locust Valley Historical Society.