Mary Emerson

Mary Holyoke (Cochran) Emerson, 93, beloved by generations of Concordians to whom she opened her home and heart, died on Friday, June 7, 2013, in Piermont, N.H., surrounded by her family, at the home of her daughter Mimi. Born in 1919 in St. Paul, Minnesota, to Margaret Turner Davis and Moncrieff Mitchell Cochran, Mary ("Sitta") moved to Concord at age 15 to attend Concord Academy. She lived with her aunt and uncle, Helen and Charlie Locke, at Middlesex School until her family moved to Concord in 1937. Graduating from Concord Academy in 1938, she attended the University of New Hampshire, majoring in animal husbandry and racing for the womens ski team, and also worked for the Dovre Ski Binding company in West Concord. In 1940, she married David Emerson of Concord, and they began a shared life of family, service, skiing and flying. After World War II, Mr. Emerson worked at Pratt & Whitney in Hartford, CT and they spent ten years in Glastonbury, where Mrs. Emerson became a Certified Nurse Aide while raising eight children and keeping track of a growing menagerie of horses, dogs, and cats. In 1957 the family of ten moved to Concord, and for thirty years Mrs. Emerson helped run blood banks for the American Red Cross and volunteered in the emergency room at Emerson Hospital. She also served as a board member for the Concord Home for the Aged, and as a member of the towns Long Range Planning Committee. She became a pilot and co-pilot for extended flights with her husband (usually on a "mission") across the country. She welcomed young and old, relatives and friends and their friends, two-leggeds and four-leggeds, for brief or extended stays in their home on Estabrook Road and later on Monument Street. She and her husband were honored as Concord's "Citizens of the Year" in 1985. After Mr. Emerson's retirement, they enjoyed twelve years in Elizabeth City, NC, where they had a de facto home for old horses. Her husband died in 1998, and Mrs. Emerson returned to Massachusetts, where she lived until Easter of this year. Mrs. Emerson is survived by her brother, William Davis Cochran of Weston/Lexington; seven of her eight children: Margaret Emerson Bancroft of Medfield; Ellen Emerson of Concord; Lauran Emerson of White River Junction, VT; Alexander Forbes Emerson of Belfast, ME; Daniel Cochran Emerson of Groton; Raymond Emerson of Concord; and Amelia Emerson of Piermont, NH; nine grandchildren; seven great-grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews. Her son William died in 1968 in Vietnam. Mrs. Emerson also leaves three daughters-in-law: Suzanne Robertson Emerson; Jennifer Pennoyer Emerson; and Suzanne Stofflet; three sons-in-law, William N. Bancroft; Bruce R. Kohler; and Hugh M. Dundee; and an exchange-student son from South Africa, Martin Burger. A memorial service will be held in Concord in late July. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may by made to the Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association, c/o J. M. Forbes & Co, 121 Mount Vernon Street, Boston, MA 02108, for support of the House, Barn and Grounds of the RWE House in Concord. For further information please contact Dee Funeral Home, Concord; www.deefuneralhome.com.