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“I not only knew this beautiful soul but I got the chance to coach her,” wrote Brianna Johnson of the Shore Pride All Stars competitive cheerleading team in Millsboro, DE. “She was definitely one of a kind. Words cannot explain how everyone is feeling.”
The team itself wrote that Maggie, who’d previously been with the CC Champs of Waldwick, “brought a smile to everyone she was around and was a friend to anyone she came in contact with. We are praying for her family and friends as they grieve the loss of such a sweet girl.
“It still doesn’t seem real.”
Maggie was born in Ridgewood and lived with her family in Wyckoff, where she attended Washington School, before they moved to Delaware.
Maggie’s mom, Monica (Mazza) Browne, was the Upper Saddle River schools superintendent from 2008-2017 after serving as principal of the Somerville Elementary School in Ridgewood for six years. Her dad, David Browne, had been the schools superintendent in Randolph.
An accomplished track-and-field athlete, Maggie competed for Cape Henlopen High School in Lewes, DE, where she was a sophomore.
She’d dreamed of becoming an engineer, friends and loved ones said.
“When not on the mat or at the track, Maggie excelled in the classroom and had a fierce love of reading, gravitating toward mythology and historical fiction,” her obituary says. “Her passion for books was infectious and she began sharing her love of reading with her nephew Charlie.”
Maggie also enjoyed music, movies and going to the beach with friends, it says.
She and four friends were on a John Deere Gator ATV whose driver failed to negotiate a curve on a private driveway, sending the vehicle skidding, shortly before 7 p.m. Tuesday, Delaware State Police said.
The side-by-side ATV – which has a driver’s seat, two passenger seats and a rear utility bed – slid off the roadway and rolled, ejecting all five, before hitting a tree, they said.
Maggie, who’d lived with her mother and a sister in Rehoboth Beach, was pronounced dead at the scene, State Police said.
Two of her friends were flown by medical chopper to a hospital, where they were in serious condition, and two others were released after being treated, they said.
Maggie was predeceased by grandparents Linda Mazza and Tom and Margaret “Peg” Browne and an uncle, TJ Browne.
In addition to her parents, she’s survived by sisters Katherine “Katie” Browne of Rehoboth Beach, Jeanne Browne (and her husband, Joseph Fullerton, of Fair Lawn) and Elizabeth Browne of Bermuda, her grandfather, Vincent Mazza, also of Rehoboth Beach, among others.
A walk-through visitation was scheduled Tuesday, April 13, from 5 to 7 p.m. at Parsell Funeral Homes & Crematorium in Lewes.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday, April 14, at St. Edmond Church, Rehoboth Beach, DEand can be viewed at: Funeral Mass: Margaret "Maggie" Brown.
Interment will be private.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks contributions in Maggie’s memory to the Michael J Fox Foundation.
“Her spirit was effervescent, her compassion for those around her humbling,” the family wrote in Maggie’s obituary. “While we cannot fathom life without her, we know that she left a little bit of her with everyone she met.
“She was a loving, compassionate and devoted daughter, sister, granddaughter, aunt, niece, cousin and friend. She was so much more than these words on the page. She was our ‘Maggie’.”
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