From Cape Ann Museum Curator, Martha Oaks:

It is with great sadness that the Cape Ann Museum notes the passing of Mary Lee Kingman Natti, known to all as Lee. A widely published author and a leading member of the Folly Cove Designers, Lee was a multi-talented woman and a dedicated supporter of the Museum for many years.

From the early 1970s onward, when the first parts of the Museum’s Folly Cove Designer collection were received, Lee was a constant and steady voice advocating that the Museum step it up in terms of displaying the collection. After special, large-scale exhibitions in 1982 and 1996, most of the collection was quietly put into storage leaving just a small segment of it on display in the back of the Museum’s auditorium. Rightfully so, Lee always felt that the collection deserved more space and more prominence. After many discussions and much planning, in 2014 as part of the Museum’s most recent round of renovations, a new and spacious gallery dedicated to the Folly Cove Designers was opened to the public. Since that time, the gallery has been a visitor favorite, a space where individuals and families can always be found, admiring and being inspired by the remarkable work of Lee Natti and her fellow Designers. Without Lee’s wisdom and foresight, the gallery would not have become a reality.

In 2018, the Museum was pleased to fill its Folly Cove Designer Gallery with Lee’s work, examples of her many books, her needlepoint, printed Christmas cards she made for family and friends and, of course, her work as a Folly Cove Designer. That same year we were honored to publicly recognize Lee with a tea party organized in honor of her birthday. Well-wishers filled the Museum, waiting patiently in a long line that wound around our third-floor galleries. Cara White worked closely with Lee for several years and remembers that on that day “no one was surprised to see so many friends coming out to show their love for Lee.”

Extraordinarily generous with her time, Lee was always available to answer questions for the Museum staff and to speak with people eager to meet her and learn more about the Folly Cove Designers. Lee was always available to help us catalog and care for the collection and a few years ago, she and her daughter Suzi opened their Lanesville home to members of the Museum’s Folly Cove Affinity Group. Those in attendance warmly remember that Lee showed the group through her home, sharing with them her personal collection of blocks cut for her Folly Cove Designer prints as well as her own collection of textiles. In thinking back on that day and on all that Lee Natti accomplished during her life, Cara noted this: Lee was a woman of intellect, and her mid-20th century work life would be the admiration of any 21st century career woman. ■