Mary Elizabeth Dorsey, a homemaker and volunteer, died in her sleep Wednesday at Buckingham's Choice, a continuing care community in Adamstown. She was 96.

Born Mary Elizabeth Claypoole and raised in Baltimore, she graduated in 1924 from Eastern High School.

For more than 50 years, Mrs. Dorsey lived at Hockley, her family's ancestral home near Annapolis. The family has occupied the property, a land grant from the king of England, since 1649.

In 1931, she married Dr. Brice Marden Dorsey, who died in 1999.

Mrs. Dorsey had been a volunteer for many years at what is now Anne Arundel Medical Center and at Chase Home for elderly women in Annapolis, operated by the Episcopal Church.

Mrs. Dorsey was a communicant of All Hallows Episcopal Church in Davidsonville.

Services were private.

She is survived by a son, the Rev. James Claypoole Dorsey of Philadelphia; a daughter, Anne Brice Dorsey Verdier of Adamstown; seven grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.