Marie Anna Hendrickson

Mystic - Marie Anna (Doll) Hendrickson of Mystic, passed away Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at home.

Born on Nov. 6, 1920, the year the 19th Amendment was passed and American women got the vote. Marie was a native New Yorker, and never completely lost her accent. She attended PS #36 in the Bronx, in a neighborhood known as Unionport, and then Roosevelt High School, from which she graduated in 1938.

She went to work at 18, and spent 12 years at the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., in Manhattan, where she was promoted steadily from file clerk to typist, to bookkeeper to adjustment clerk, and then assistant section head.

She left Metropolitan Life in 1950, to marry Karl T. "Ted" Hendrickson, and move to New London, where her husband's large family lived in a neighborhood adjacent to Riverside Park.

In New London, Marie Hendrickson worked first as a receptionist and then as a subscription clerk for National Foreman's Institute, a publishing company.

When her children were born, she became a stay at home mother and volunteer in the community. She sought care and maintenance for Riverside Park near her home on the corner of Crystal Avenue and Grove Street. She became an active member of the Parent-Teachers Organization, as well as a Girl Scout leader at Winthrop School at a time when the school was located near Hodges Square next to The Olde Town Mill. At that time, Hodges Square was a flourishing neighborhood business center where Marie did most of her food shopping. In 1968, the family lost part of their back yard to eminent domain for the relocation of Winthrop School when the Gold Star Memorial Bridge over the Thames River was enlarged. She did not mind the proximity of the school, but felt the loss of city blocks where friends had lived.

In 1969, Marie became an office worker at Connecticut College. She worked as a bookkeeper in the Residence Department and as assistant to the department head, and then transferred to the Accounting Office. She retired from Connecticut College 21 years later in 1990, at the age of 70, still very fond of her job, and was recalled twice to train her successors.

After retirement, she traveled to Europe and within the United States, cooked large family Sunday dinners, doted on her granddaughters, and walked her Jack Russell Terrier, Patch, in the Connecticut College Arboretum. She very much enjoyed the young people she met through her children, who became cherished lifelong friends into her old age. They will remember her love of family and friends, a good glass of wine, and an opportunity to dance. Marie, who was skilled at sewing, drawing, and painting, volunteered at the Lyman Allyn Museum as a receptionist, but left when the museum's desk telephone switched to an automated system, and she could no longer answer the phone personally.

Widowed in 2000, Marie sold the home in New London that had been built by her husband and his father with their own hands, and moved to Mystic in 2004, to live in a cottage addition to her daughter's residence. Her son is also located nearby in Mystic. After having enjoyed robust health for 92.5 years, she was diagnosed with lung cancer at the end of April 2013. She died at home, cared for by family and the Center for Hospice Care Southeast Connecticut to whom donations may be made in her name.

Marie is survived by her children and their spouses, Ted and Mary Hendrickson and Janis and Andreas Mink, all of Mystic; as well as her granddaughters, Karli Hendrickson and Louisa Mink; and her terrier, Patch. She also leaves a beloved brother-in-law, Tom O'Connor; and numerous nieces and nephews and their families.

A gathering will be held from 10:30 to 11 a.m. Saturday, July 27, followed by a service at 11 a.m. at the Mystic Funeral Home, Route 1, Mystic. Burial will be private.

Please visit www.mysticfuneralhome.com to leave an online message of condolence.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to The Center for Hospice Care Southeast Connecticut, (www.hospicesect.org).