WAYLAND: Marylynn Gentry, cherished wife of Chris Riley and beloved mother of daughters Samantha and Meredith Riley, died on December 7, 2019 with her family at her side, after a valiant struggle with complications from multiple myeloma. Aged 62, she was the daughter of the late Mary Jane and Stokes Gentry, of St. George, Vermont. A graduate of the University of Vermont, Marylynn also earned secondary degrees from Pennsylvania State University and MIT. As a resident of Wayland, Massachusetts for over 25 years, Marylynn was a dedicated advocate for open space and conservation efforts.
She served on Wayland’s Conservation Commission from 1994 to 2006, Wayland’s Community Preservation Committee from 2001 to 2005, Wayland’s Paine Estate Committee from 1995 to 2000, and served in a leadership role with the Sudbury Valley Trustees as Board President and Board member from 2009 to the present. Her combined service in these roles fully embodied Wayland’s conservation ethos through her actions. In addition to her work in Wayland, she also served as the Executive Director of the Harvard Conservation Trust and the Massachusetts Land Trust Coalition. Marylynn received many acknowledgements and awards for her conservation work.
Marylynn’s devotion to the land was formed in her childhood playing with her brother Brad and sister Sarah on her family’s farm in Vermont and spending many joyous summers and vacations with them and later with her husband and their daughters on Bisby Lake in the Adirondacks.
Equal in measure to her passion for the land and its conservation was Marylynn’s commitment to her family and friends. Generous of spirit with her time, her listening ear and wise counsel, Marylynn, with her warm smile, engaging sense of humor and infectious laughter, captivated all who knew her. In addition to her husband and daughters, she is survived by her aunts and uncle, Carol Emerick and Mary and Dave Call, her brother Brad Gentry (Eugénie) and sister Sarah Tischler (Marc), their children Paige Gentry, Cyrus Gentry (Cecilia), Jacob Tischler and Ethan Tischler and many cousins from the Call, Winde and Riley families.
A celebration of Marylynn’s life will be held on January 18, 2020 at 2:00PM at First Parish in Wayland, 50 Cochituate Rd, Wayland.
In lieu of flowers, donations in memory of Marylynn may be made to either
Sudbury Valley Trustees www.svt.web.org or Dana Farber http://danafarber.jimmyfund.org/goto/marylynngentry