Cecile Marie Hogan

HOGAN, CECILE MARIE
Cecile Marie Hogan was born on March 16, 1922 in Brooklyn, New York, and passed away peacefully on June 8, 2013 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the age of 91. She was the first of three children born to Marie J. Duplant, a native of Brittany, France, and Bruce G. Makinson of Virginia Beach, VA. The couple met when Bruce served in the American Expeditionary Force in France during World War I. Marie joined Bruce in New York shortly after the war, and the couple settled in Springfield Gardens, N.Y. Cecile was an outstanding student and was valedictorian of her high school class. She earned degrees from Hunter College and Queens College. A lifelong learner, she later added a second master's degree at the University of Michigan. She was employed as an administrative secretary to a vice president of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey when the Second World War broke out. Like many of her generation, she worked in the defense industry for the duration of that conflict. During that time she met Joseph M. Hogan, whom she would eventually marry. The couple corresponded throughout the war, in which Joseph served in the Merchant Marines. They were married in New York City on December 27, 1947, which happened to be the day of one of the greatest blizzards in the history of the city. Only a hardy few of the wedding guests were able to fight their way through snowdrifts several feet high to reach the church. The Hogans settled in Bayside, New York. Cecile taught 3rd and 5th graders in the New York City public school system, while Joseph commuted from Queens Borough in to New York City to work for television and radio stations. The couple had three children, Walter (1949), Josephine (1956) and Glenn (1958). Shortly after Glenn's birth, the family relocated to Ann Arbor, MI, where Joseph worked as a financial analyst for the University of Michigan until his retirement three decades later. Although Cecile gave up the teaching career she had loved, she became strongly involved with other pursuits and made many new friends in Ann Arbor. She served as a volunteer at St. Joseph's Hospital for many years, first at its old location on Ingalls Street (just around the corner from the Hogans' home on North Thayer Street), and continuing after the hospital moved to its current location in Superior Township. She assisted at St. Thomas school in various ways, and gave all of her children way too much help with their Science Fair Projects. Cecile was an avid natural history buff and had an advanced amateur knowledge of botany, zoology, and astronomy. She and Joseph were active in the Old Fourth Ward Neighborhood Association. The Hogans resided in the Thomas Ready House (built in 1858), and later purchased the adjacent property, the Patrick O'Hearn house (1888). In 1989 the couple were given a preservation award by the Ann Arbor Historic District Commission for their excellent maintenance of the two historic homes. Joseph Hogan passed away in 1998, just months after the couple's 50th wedding anniversary. Shortly thereafter, Cecile became a resident of the Glacier Hills Senior Living Community. Cecile Hogan was preceded by her brother John Makinson, of Stephentown, New York. She is survived by her brother Robert, of Brooklyn, New York; and by three children, four grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. Son Walter, of Ann Arbor, a professor and librarian at Eastern Michigan University, is married to Wendy Woodworth, a retired attorney. His son, Dr. Jeremy Hogan, is a 1993 Huron High School graduate and currently an orthopedic surgeon in Laconia, N.H. Jeremy and his wife, Nicole, have a daughter, Isla Clare, who met her great-grandmother before Cecile's final illness. Daughter Josephine, of Cheverly, MD, a nurse at George Washington University Hospital, and her husband David Bender, of the U.S. Patent Office have three children: Daniel, a recent graduate of Salisbury State University; August, a recent graduate of the University of Baltimore; and Avielle, currently a student at the University of Maryland, College Park. Son Glenn is an attorney in Plymouth Michigan. Cecile is also survived by friends of long duration, especially Eileen O'Sullivan Blake, of Ridgefield Park, N.J., a close friend of more than eighty years. Cecile was buried in St. Thomas Cemetery, Ann Arbor, beside Joseph, her husband of fifty years.