Mary E. Heibel, an antiques collector and appraiser whose cancer vanished after praying to a 19th-century Maryland priest now being considered for sainthood, died Friday of pneumonia at Anne Arundel Medical Center.
The longtime Annapolis resident was 71.
Mary Ellen White, the daughter of a Mack Truck Co. manager and secretary, was born and raised in Erie, Pa. She was a graduate of Mercyhurst Seminary/Preparatory School in Erie and attended Mercyhurst College.
In 1956, she married Dr. John L. Heibel, a dentist, and after he retired from the Navy 20 years later, the couple settled in Annapolis.
An inveterate antiques collector, Mrs. Heibel established in 1982 Personal Property Consultants Inc., an Annapolis antiques appraisal firm now operated by a son.
Mrs. Heibel was a member of the American Society of Appraisers and past president of the organization's Maryland chapter. She had been a member of the International Society of Appraisers.
She was also a member of the Winterthur Museum Guild, Daughters of the American Revolution and the Annapolis & Anne Arundel Chamber of Commerce.
After being diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2004 and undergoing chemotherapy, Mrs. Heibel, a devout Roman Catholic, began praying to Francis X. Seelos, a 19th-century Maryland priest.
To the amazement of her physician and Mrs. Heibel, who wore a fragment of the priest's bone in a brass necklace reliquary, her metastatic cancer vanished.
"Surely the outcome was remarkable, but was it - in the sense applied by the Roman Catholic Church in such cases - a miracle?" The Baltimore Sun wrote in a June article regarding the Archdiocese of Baltimore's efforts to examine witnesses to help the pope determine whether the Maryland priest should be granted sainthood.
Mrs. Heibel was a parishioner of St. Mary Roman Catholic Church in Annapolis, and a member of the Cursillo and Redemptorist Associates.
A Mass of Christian burial will be offered at 9 a.m. today at St. John Neumann Roman Catholic Church, 620 N. Bestgate Road, Annapolis.
In addition to her husband of 53 years, surviving are three sons, James Heibel of Annapolis, Jeff Heibel of Cocao Beach, Fla., and John Heibel of Shingletown, Calif.; a daughter, Mary Frances Landess of Baltimore; and 11 grandchildren.
