Anne Elizabeth Lieber Michael

Anne Elizabeth Lieber Michael, 71, of Kent and Queen Anne''s County, died peacefully on August 16, 2004 at the Chester River Hospital Center, near her Emory''s Landing Farm home, in Kent County. She was the eighth generation in an unbroken line of farmers descended through the Emory,Wilkins and Comegys families. Born April 11, 1933 at Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, DC, she was the daughter of Isabel Atkinson and Major General Albert C. Lieber of Boston, MA. Her brother is Albert C. Lieber, Jr. of Kent County. As an Army Engineer''s daughter, she was brought up at Fort Belvoir, Virginia; Zanesville, OH; Fort Leavenworth, KS; Chestertown, MD; New York City; Fortress Monroe, VA; and Falls Church, VA. She was baptized at Old Pohick Church, near Mount Vernon and Fort Belvoir; and confirmed at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Chestertown, MD. She was a graduate of the Holton Arms School in Washington, DC and William and Mary College, Williamsburg, VA where she was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in 1954. Her home then was Emory''s Grant Farm off Spaniard''s Neck in Queen Anne''s County, Maryland. Her forbear, Arthur Emory, immigrated from Somersett, England in 1667 and established the original home farm, Poplar Grove, on Spaniard''s Neck. Her distinguished great-great-grandfather, Colonel Edward Wilkins, was raised on Quaker Neck in Kent County. His lands included Riverside, Tilghman Farms, Dam Creek Far and York, the early seat of the Wilkins family, established by ship builder Thomas Wilkins granted lands here in 1720. Employing his farms Cintra at Spaniard''s Point in Queen Anne''s and Piney Grove in Kent, her great-grandfather, Captain R.S. Emory, was nationally accclaimed as a producer and authority on pear and peach cultivation; which his father-in-law, Colonel Wilkins, had introduced to the Eastern Shore. In the next generation, Anne Michael''s grandmother, Ella Emory, married Captain Cecil Reilly Atkinson, and they lived at their Belle Rio and Riverside Estates in Kent County. A staunch advocate of waterman''s interests in difficult times, Cecil Atkinson represented Kent County in the Maryland House of Delegates early in the 20th Century. On July 31, 1954 Anne Elizabeth Lieber married Lieutenant Louis Guy Michael, of Washington, DC at Emmanuel Church in Chestertown, the Reverend Charles Atwater, presiding; as he had at her parents wedding. They had three children, Barbara Elizabeth, Louis Guy, III, and John Emory; and six grandchildren, all surviving, living in Alexandria, VIrginia and Chestertown, Maryland. On Saturday, July 31, 2004 the Reverend Gregory Straub, Rector of Chester Parish, offered Holy Communion at Emmanuel Church for the couple celebrating fifty golden years of wedlock. For the first 34 years, as the bride of an Infantry soldier, who later was a senior Department of Defense executive, Anne Lieber Michael made homes in peace and war for her family, taught school, ever actively supporting the troops; undertaking official and volunteer duties while living at Fort Myer, VA; Fort Benjamin Harrison, IN; Fort Benning, GA; Berlin, Germany; Paris, France; Fort Levenworth, KS; Fort Belvoir, VA; West Point, NY; the Presidio of monterey, CA; Mokuleia Beach, Oahu, Hawaiian Islands; Fort Huachuca, AZ; Carlisle Barracks, PA and Washington, DC. During the last 16 years, from 1988 until her death, she devoted herself to the farmlands at Emory''s Landing she had inherited from Belle Emory more than 50 years ago; and also at her Dam Creek Farm. The home farm is the site of one of the area''s typical farm signal stops, from which peaches, corn, and passengers were exported until the 1930''s. Before the Chester River Steamship Line, in the times of Captain R.S. Emory, his ship, the "General Washington", provided such service from Chestertown down the Chester River to Baltimore. As a dedicated horticulturist and practical engineer, in her family''s tradition, she converted what had been a bare cow pasture to a number of extensive; but simple, vegetable, herb, perennial and woodland gardens complimenting her house and dependencies, beautifully sited on the Chester River and recognized in particular, by the Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage. She was accomplished in sewing, painting, music and the traditional arts of homemaking. With her husband, and son, John Emory Michael, she actively worked on, and managed, a 300 acre grain producing farmstead, with its livestock, chickens, and horses, now preserved in perpetuity by the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy. Neighbors and friends may call from 6:00 until 8:00 PM on Thursday, August 26, 2004 at Fellows, Helfenbein and Newnam Funeral Home, P.A., 130 Speer Road, Chestertown, MD. A Requiem Eucharist service will be held on Friday, August 27, 2004 at 11:00 AM at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Cross Street, Chestertown, MD. Interment will be held privately in the Emmanuel Church Garth at a later time.