Mary Moody Northen

Mary Elizabeth Moody Northen (10 February 1892 – 25 August 1986) was an American financier and philanthropist from Galveston, Texas. She was the daughter of financial and insurance tycoon William Lewis Moody, Jr. and aunt of businessman Shearn Moody, Jr. She was also named chairman of the board for the Moody National Bank. Northen continued to maintain control over the family's companies, until her own death in 1986.

Legacy and death In 1942, her parents set up the Moody Foundation, to which their estate was transferred after their deaths. The Foundation awards grants to various civic and environmental causes in Texas. Northen was installed as chairman of the foundation after her father's death and continued to run the foundation until her own death in 1986.

Through her work with the Moody Foundation, she helped to fund the restoration of many historic structures in Galveston, including an abandoned Santa Fe Railroad depot and office building, turning it into a railroad museum, and the 1877 iron sailing bark Elissa. In her will she directed the Northen foundation's trustees to restore her childhood Galveston home, "The Moody Mansion", and maintain it as a museum, as well as maintain the Mountain Lake Hotel, a nature sanctuary and resort in Virginia.

Northen died in Galveston on August 25, 1986, at the age of 94. Her funeral was attended by more than a thousand people and Texas Governor Mark White ordered flags flown at half-staff at state buildings in her honor.