Charlotte Garretson Cronin, 100

Charlotte Garretson Cronin, who chronicled and shared the history of her hometown of Aberdeen, MD, died June 15, 2026 in Baltimore.

The only child of Clinton and Marie Garretson, Mrs. Cronin eagerly absorbed her father’s stories about his childhood and the history of the Garretson family, whose Aberdeen roots date to the 1660s.

Mrs. Cronin attended the University of Pennsylvania, and was one of the first women enrolled in classes at the Wharton School. She went to work as a statistician at the Aberdeen Proving Ground after her graduation in 1945.

She married William Royall Cronin in 1948 and worked closely with him to manage the family newspaper, the Harford Democrat. Mrs. Cronin’s recollections of her father’s stories and her own childhood were topics of her regular column for the paper. After the Democrat was sold in 1982, Mrs. Cronin continued the column, which subsequently ran in the Aberdeen Enterprise, Record, and Aegis until she stopped writing in 2018.

Eager to share Aberdeen’s history with younger people, Mrs. Cronin founded the Aberdeen Room Archives and Museum in 1987. She amassed newspaper files from the Harford Democrat, along with family artifacts and papers, into early collections in the basement of the old Aberdeen Elementary School. Like-minded friends soon added their own collections, precipitating the growth of a popular local institution now known as the Aberdeen Historical Museum.

Mrs. Cronin and her husband led the early efforts to secure funding and support to relocate and preserve the Aberdeen B & O Train Station, which is currently being restored. Mr. Cronin died in 2015.

Mrs. Cronin is survived by her son, John G. Cronin and his wife Becky Brasington Clark of Lewes, DE; daughter, Cheryl Cronin Levitan and her husband Dr. Dean Levitan of Visalia, CA; granddaughter, Carolyn Levitan of Seattle, WA; grandson, Gregory Levitan and his wife Lindsey Levitan, and their children Tucker and Jade, all of Santa Monica, CA.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Aberdeen Historical Museum. Services will be private.

Charlotte G. Cronin

September 23, 1925 - June 15, 2026

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