Mary Meader

Rachael Mary Upjohn Light Meader (April 15, 1916 – March 16, 2008) was an American aerial photographer and explorer. Heir to the Upjohn Company fortune, she is best known in aerial circles for her 35,000-mile (56,000 km) flight in 1937–1938, during which she photographed unprecedented images of South America and Africa. Her African photographs were later featured in the book Focus on Africa. In her later years, she also became known in her native Kalamazoo, Michigan, for her philanthropy to Western Michigan University, the University of Michigan, and various Kalamazoo charities.

Early life Mary Meader was born to William Harold Upjohn and Grace Genevieve Bray Upjohn in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on April 15, 1916, a grandchild of Dr. W. E. Upjohn, the founder of the pharmaceutical Upjohn Company. They took advantage of the Peruvian government's allowal to take pictures in the air by capturing the earliest photographs of the Nazca Lines.

Later life and philanthropy Three hundred twenty-three of Meader's African photos were included in Focus on Africa, a 1941 book written by her husband and published by the American Geographical Society. Light and Meader divorced in the early 1960s. They donated millions of dollars to Western Michigan University, the University of Michigan, and various Kalamazoo charities. The Edwin and Mary Meader Rare Book Room was later dedicated to the library. The Meaders also gave $18 million to the University of Michigan, Edwin Meader's alma mater, in 2004 -- $8 million to U-M's Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, which was the largest gift ever to U-M's College of Literature, Science and the Arts, and $10 million to build a center for the study of depression, which was named the Rachel Upjohn Building after W.E. Upjohn's first wife.

On November 21, 2006, Meader was awarded the title of honorary member of the American Geographical Society and was invited to sign her name on its Fliers' & Explorers' Globe. This was part of a tradition spanning back to the 1920s in which noted explorers are asked to place their signature on the Globe. Meader was the 79th to do so. Other signers of the globe include Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Sir Edmund Hillary, Robert Peary, Richard Byrd, and the astronauts on Apollo 8. Meader was one of only three people to sign it twice; across East Africa and the Andes.

Mary Meader died on March 16, 2008, in Kalamazoo at the age of 91. Her husband died one year before. Survivors include sons Christopher, Timothy, and John, of Kalamazoo, and Rudolph, of Ukiah, California; seven grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.