Obituaries

Mabel Grover MangoFamily Therapist

Mabel Grover Mango, 78, a social worker and family therapist, died of lung cancer Oct. 5 at Suburban Hospital. She was a Bethesda resident.

Ms. Mango supervised the Family Therapy Adolescent Program at the former Taylor Manor Hospital in Ellicott City, where she practiced family therapy and trained mental health professionals in family therapy for more than 16 years. She also had a private family therapy practice in Bethesda and worked part time at the Family Life Center in Columbia.

Ms. Mango worked and trained extensively with Virginia Satir, a proponent of the human potential movement and pioneer in family therapy. She was a founding member and former president of the Human Learning Resource Network and participated in Avanta, an organization that promotes healthy relationships.

Ms. Mango was born in Waltham, Mass., and spent most of her childhood in Gloversville, N.Y. She graduated from Antioch College, then traveled and worked in orphanages in France to help children recover from family traumas that occurred during World War II.

She moved to the Washington area in 1953. In 1960, she was one of eight women in a pilot project at the National Institute of Mental Health for training female mental health counselors. The study was replicated at Johns Hopkins University, which helped establish a master's degree program in mental health counseling and served as a model for the Psychiatric Institute of America.

Later, Ms. Mango worked with drug-abusing teenagers at Karma House in Rockville, a training project that became a model for Maryland.

She received a master's degree from the Kent School of Social Work at the University of Louisville in 1975.

Her commitment to helping families was underscored by her passion for serving victims of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. Through her involvement with Friends of Chernobyl Center, U.S., she traveled to Ukraine to meet with affected children and families, helped establish social services and contributed to charitable fundraising. She also was a member of the Institute for International Connections.

She was a member of the Cedar Lane Unitarian Church in Bethesda.

Her marriage to Cyril Mango ended in divorce.

Survivors include her daughter, Cecily Mango of Kensington; a brother, Charles Grover of Bethesda; a sister, Jean Grover Sylvester of Buffalo; and a grandson.