RICHMOND, Va. -- Mary Ashworth, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her work on a biography of George Washington, has died at the age of 89.
Ashworth, who died Saturday, once worked for historian Douglas Freeman as a historical associate.
After Freeman's death, she and another researcher, John Alexander Carroll, finished the sixth and wrote the seventh volume of Freeman's biography of Washington.
She received the John Simon Guggenheim fellowship in 1954 to finance the project. Ashworth, Freeman and Carroll won a Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1958.
Her literary contributions also include the World Book Encyclopedia and 'Notable American Women 1607-1950.'
Ashworth, who was reared in Florida, came to Virginia when she was a teenager.
She graduated from Hollins College in 1924 and was a former board member of the college. She was one of eight women to get the Hollins medal in 1967 and the Algernon Sydney Sullivan award in 1972. She also received an honorary degree from the college this year.
Ashworth was a former president of the Virginia Home, the Woman's Club of Richmond and Women of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. She was the former chairwoman of the Richmond Chapter of the Lee Memorial Foundation.
She was the widow of Dr. Osborne Ashworth, a Richmond physician who died in 1945.
She leaves two sons, Osborne Ashworth Jr. of Alexandria and Dr. John Ashworth of Richmond.
