Constance McMillan Elson

Constance McMillan Elson

Constance McMillan Elson, age 78, died on November 15, 2020 from an aggressive colon cancer. She is survived by three sisters, Deborah McMillan, Kate McMillan (Bill Krauss) and Martha Donaldson (John Donaldson); two former husbands, Elliot Elson and Dan Evett. She was predeceased by her son, Peter McMillan Evett, who died at age 8, and her partner and boat companion, Frederick Fitzmeyer.

A graduate of Catalina High School in 1960, she completed her bachelors at Stanford University and a PhD in mathematics at University of California at San Diego. She was a professor of mathematics for 30 years at Ithaca College in upstate New York. In 1999, she left her tenured academic position and worked at several positions in Boston, the last of which was at Massachusetts General Hospital as a biostatistician on a large multi-hospital study of multiple organ failure. In October 2007, she and her partner Fred sailed out of Boston Harbor and spend the next 5 years exploring the West Indies, Colombia and Panama. In 2015, she returned to Southern Arizona, and became an active volunteer with the Arizona Desert Museum, the Tucson Samaritans, Keep Tucson Together and the Kino Border Initiative.

Throughout her entire life Connie was a passionate lover of American Wilderness, hiking at her blistering of 1.5 mi/hr in Southwest Deserts and in our national forests; canoe trekking in Quebec: skiing in the Mountain West and in New England; easing her beloved sailboat Tashtego into coves and anchorages throughout the Caribbean.