Grace C. Horton, 88, Dies; Philanthropist Worked With Refugees and Low-Income Families

GRACE C. HORTON, 88

Grace C. Horton, 88, Dies; Philanthropist Worked With Refugees and Low-Income Families

Grace C. Horton helped start what is now Health Share of St. Mary's. (Family Photo)

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Thursday, September 3, 2009

Grace C. Horton, 88, a longtime Southern Maryland resident who was involved in charitable efforts close to home and around the world, died of respiratory failure Aug. 28 at Washington Hospital Center. She lived in Solomons.

In the early 1990s, Mrs. Horton helped start what is now Health Share of St. Mary's, a nonprofit program to help low-income people and families who cannot afford medical care. She also served on the county's human relations committee, which handles discrimination claims and issues, and on an affordable housing study group.

She was a charter member and past president of the St. Mary's County chapter of the League of Women Voters.

Grace Calhoun was born July 12, 1921, in Selma, Ala., where she was one of nine children of a Methodist minister. Her father's influence as well as growing up poor during the Depression led her to a career in social work after graduating in 1943 from Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Ala.

She then spent several years in Chicago working in child welfare while attending a master's degree program in social work at the University of Chicago.

In 1947, she married John R. Horton and accompanied him on his CIA career in Asia and Latin America; he became chief of the CIA's Soviet bloc division. While living in Hong Kong from 1958 to 1962, Mrs. Horton was an employee of the International Social Service, a nonprofit organization that works with refugees. Her focus was on adoption placement in the United States for Eurasian children.

Through the organization, she met Mabel Ingalls, a bacteriologist and granddaughter of tycoon J. Pierpont Morgan. Ingalls owned the historic Sotterley Plantation along the Patuxent River in St. Mary's. Ingalls sold a parcel on the plantation to the Hortons, where they lived from the mid-1970s until moving to the Asbury-Solomons Island retirement community in 2000. Mrs. Horton served on the Sotterley Foundation board of trustees.

Her husband died in 2007. Survivors include four children, Andrew M. Horton of Falmouth, Maine, Mary C. Horton of Washington, David R. Horton of St. Johnsbury, Vt., and Jane B. Horton of Decatur, Ga.; a sister; and seven grandchildren.

Throughout her life, Mrs. Horton occasionally took college courses, most recently at St. Mary's College of Maryland. After she and her husband moved to Asbury-Solomons Island, they led the effort to arrange for courses taught by St. Mary's College faculty to be offered at the retirement center. The college later designated its program of community courses after the Hortons.

-- Adam Bernstein

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