Mary Estrin

1944 - 2020

Mary Lloyd Estrin

1944-2020





Mary Lloyd Estrin, tireless activist and advocate for human rights, economic equality, social justice, nuclear disarmament and national peace and security issues, passed away peacefully on April 26, 2020 after a long battle with cancer and COPD.

Ms Estrin was the Board Chair of Ploughshares Fund (2013-2018); Vice-President of John M Lloyd Foundation; and Program Director of Human Rights and Economic Justice at the General Service Foundation for almost 30 years. She served as Trustee of Vassar College; Board Chair of the Wildwood School in Los Angeles; Vice-President of the Board of the Tripod School for Deaf Children; and Capital Campaign Chair and Board member of Windward School in Los Angeles.

Ms Estrin also served as the Chair of the Development Committee for Ploughshares Fund, a member of the Pacific Council for International Policy and Southern California Committee of Human Rights Watch. She also served on the steering committee of the Labor and Community Working Group of the Neighborhood Funders Group and on the Advisory Committee of the LIFT Fund.

Ms Estrin attended Vassar College from 1962 to 1964 and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1966. She earned her MS from the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in photography in 1975.

A professional photographer for fifteen years, her work was published in 1979 by Little-Brown, To the Manor Born. After the book was published, a bidding war broke out between Life Magazine and Esquire Magazine for the rights to publish excerpts. In 2014 one of her photographs was used to advertise a Broadway play, A Delicate Balance â€" with the subject's face blocked out. Her photographs of Mikhail Baryshnikov, Pat Boone, Joan Didion and others were published in Rolling Stone, MS and the New York Times.

Ms Estrin's work was exhibited in galleries across the country, including in New York at the Sonnabend Gallery â€" and in Milan, Italy at Il Diaframma. Collections of her work are held at the Art Institute of Chicago; Bibliotheque National in Paris; Loeb Art Center, Vassar College; Polaroid Collection; Seagram Photography Collection; among several others.

Despite her many accomplishments, Mary remained a modest woman, often deferring to others when praised. In her "spare time", Mary remained an active social being, prizing her many friends. She loved hiking, her weekly walks by the ocean, her monthly Ikebana class, exploring the world with her family, doting on her grandchildren, visiting museums and galleries around the world, and attending family reunions. Mary never missed an LA Opera or an LA Philharmonic concert (especially if Dudamel was conducting). Mary also enjoyed horseback riding and herding cattle at Lone Mountain Ranch south of Santa Fe and High Country Ranch in northern New Mexico â€" often working as hard as the cowboys. Mary's interests were many and varied, but none were as important to her as her close and treasured friends and loving family.

Mary was born 30 September 1944 in Libertyville, Illinois to Glen A. Lloyd and Marion Musser Lloyd. She was preceded in death by her brother, John M. Lloyd and sister, Ann B. Lloyd. She is survived by her husband, Robert; daughter, Zoë Lloyd Foxley (Griff); sons, Jesse London Estrin (Julia) and Eliot Musser Estrin (Gabrielle); and four grandchildren: Hazel Foxley, Gus Foxley, Maren Foxley, and Iris Zhuang-Estrin. Ms Estrin is also survived by her sister, Megan Lloyd Hill of Santa Fe NM, and by numerous cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews, from across the country.

Mary Lloyd Estrin led a life dedicated to serving others. The Estrin Award was recently established at Ploughshares to provide seed grants to emergent, risk-taking, movement-building efforts that have the potential to transform the work of Ploughshares Fund. The Estrin Award will support grassroots activists and new voices that highlight the intersectionality of the nuclear issue with other issues such as human rights, social justice, the environment, and women's rights.

Anyone wishing to honor Mary is urged to visit https://www.ploughshares.org/honoring-life-mary-lloyd-estrin.