Maria Przybylska

PRZYBYLSKA, Maria Died peacefully at the Hospice at May Court in Ottawa on October 8th. She was born Maria Kolasa on March 2, 1923 in Warsaw, Poland. Having narrowly escaped Poland with her father and brother just ahead of the German and Russian invasion of 1939, she made her way to Scotland by way of Romania, Yugoslavia, Italy, France, Spain and Portugal. She studied chemistry at the University of Glasgow from 1940 through 1946. After graduation she pursued graduate work there in x-ray crystallography, receiving her Ph.D. in 1949. That year she joined the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa, where she worked until her retirement in 1988. Her passion for her work unquenched, she continued her research as health and facilities would permit into the late 1990s. Her distinguished scientific career spanned 50 productive years, yielding 70 publications and dozens of solved chemical structures. She was pre-deceased by Waclaw Przybylski (1918-2005), whom she met at the University of Glasgow and married in 1949, and survived by sons Martin and Steven (Michelle) and grandchildren Elizabeth and Alexander. She has been laid to rest in Notre-Dame Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations to the Hospice at May Court are requested. Inquiries to sp@verdande.com