1935
2022
OLESON
MARY RUSSELL OLESON
Mary Russell Oleson, who considered herself a life-long globetrotter, died of complications related to dementia on October 18, 2022 in Towson, MD. She was 87.
Mary was born on August 15, 1935, on the island of Shameen in Guangzhou to Bertha (nee Sears) and Robert Russell, both Maine natives. Her father worked for the First National City Bank of New York and for five years the family lived in China, Singapore, and Manila until they, including her younger brother Ralph, returned to Maine. In 1941, the bank sent her father to Shanghai, where the Japanese interned him in a camp in Pudong. He was repatriated two years later, but was soon posted again to Manila and then to various cities in Japan. The rest of the family lived in Saco, ME, where Bertha taught in the public schools. Every summer, Mary would travel abroad to visit her father.
She went to high school at Thornton Academy in Saco, graduating in 1952, and then to Wellesley College, graduating in 1956 with a BA in Mathematics. She often referred to her time at Wellesley as among the best years of her life and she made close, enduring friendships there. One friend, her then roommate Merle Golden Bogin, arranged the blind date at which Mary met John Oleson, her future husband. They were married in Saco in 1957, after which they moved to Chicago, Mary working as a statistician and John as a lawyer. A year later, they moved to Washington, D.C., where he began work in the State Department and she began her eventual thirty-year career with the Coast and Geodetic Survey (now NGS).
In the 1960s, John was posted to Bilbao, where their daughter Lisa was born; to Mexico City, where their son Neil was born; and to Bogotá, where their son Eric was born. In the 1970s, the family lived in Paraguay, Bolivia, Egypt, and Honduras, where John served as director or deputy director of the USAID mission. During those years abroad, Mary taught math in the American schools, organized social functions related to John's diplomatic work, and joined women's charity groups.
In 1981, they returned to their home in Chevy Chase, MD, and Mary resumed her job at NGS. She obtained a BS degree in Computer Science from UMD College Park in 1986 and subsequently became an IT Specialist at NGS. As a feminist, she said she liked to think that, in the process of studying and working in the field of IT at that time, she was doing her small part in adding cracks to the "glass ceiling." She and John moved to Baltimore in 2000 to be near their daughter and her husband, Brendan Meagher, and their sons, Declan and Finnian. Soon thereafter, Mary became a volunteer Democratic Party activist and continued as such to the end of her life. She retired from NGS in 2007 and, although she would miss her work and colleagues at the Silver Spring offices, she soon traded coding for memoir-writing. In addition, she and John continued their globetrotting adventures, domestically and abroad. They were also avid patrons of the theatre, both in New York City and the D.C. area, and of concerts and museums. Whenever she could, Mary attended her Wellesley class reunions and became a devoted donor to the Davis Museum of Art there. Most of all, she enjoyed following the activities of her beloved grandsons, including a third, Jasper Davenport, born in 2008.
Mary has been predeceased by her parents, her brother, and her husband. She is survived by her children, her grandsons, and her nephew, Nathan Russell. Her remains will be interred with those of her husband at the DACOR section of St. Paul's Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, DC. A celebration of her life will be held at a later date to be determined. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Wellesley College or to a charity of your choice.
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