Michael Francis DeMarco

Michael Francis DeMarco, 79

Michael Francis DeMarco, son of Samuel and Helen DeMarco, was born on May 29, 1946 in Rochester, New York, and died October 17, 2025 outside Sequim, Washington, after a short bout of pancreatic cancer, his wife of fifty-eight years, Patricia, by his side in their cabin near the Dungeness River.

Michael, born with an insatiable curiosity, had read the whole of Collier's Lands and Peoples by age eleven, wondering who populated the rest of the world and how they lived and if he could document some of it with sound and photos. After seeing the effects of acid rain in the Adirondack Mountains while on summer staff at Massawepie Scout Camps, he became interested in the environment and the findings of Rachel Carson. Martin Luther King was inspirational in the realm of civil rights.

His interests took him west after graduation from high school, to the University of Idaho in Moscow to study forestry. Within weeks he met his wife-to-be, a Sandpoint native, Patricia Nikkola, (SHS '64)," and changed his major to education. After Idaho, they headed north to teach in the rural village schools of Kipnuk and Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska. After moving into the Interior near Fairbanks, Michael worked with the Center for Cross-Cultural Equation at the University of Alaska as a liaison between rural villages and the Department of Education in Juneau.

After a decade of building a cabin and homesteading without running water and electricity, while also maintaining a dog sled kennel and abundant gardens, and Michael working BLM Fire Control and tagging salmon for Fish and Game in the summers, the couple was encouraged to return to Idaho, where Michael worked with challenged youth for Rocky Mt. Academy and taught elementary grades at Kidsview School near Bonners Ferry. He administered the Selkirk School in Sandpoint and substitute taught in area high schools.

He kept his interests in the environment by volunteering with water quality issues, running stream checks, publishing a newspaper dedicated to sustainable living practices in the Intermountain Northwest, and working with community environmental boards. Few who heard him, will forget the public reading of his poem, "Cry Me a River," regarding potential sources of mining pollution at the Rock Creek Mine along the Clark Fork River.

A sojourn to southern New Mexico drew the couple into learning about making herbal medicines, and they returned briefly to Idaho to forage for medicinals, prepare blends, and keep his friends healthy.

The shores of the Big Island of Hawaii drew them next and they spent four years in the more rural area of Puna, living on the flanks of Kilauea, which eventually inundated the area with 30 to 50 feet of lava. Here Michael also involved himself in cultural and educational programs for area youth and alternative housing.

Retirement took them to the far northwest corner of the United States, in an area they viewed on their honeymoon, nearly sixty years earlier. Surrounded by the majesty and rain forests of the Olympic Peninsula near Sequim, Washington, Michael could further explore his lifelong interest in nature photography. Many of the film photographs taken throughout their journeys in Alaska were also copied, along with dance recordings, and were given back to the villages as documentation of their history.

Wherever he went, Michael truly appreciated people, especially hearing their personal stories over a cup of tea or coffee. Reluctantly kept housebound the last years of his life due to a painful facial neuralgia, he took to the web and fanned the globe for information that fed his lifelong study of history, geography, and maps, along with historical migrations and their affect on politics.

Michael is survived by his wife, Patricia; a brother Steven, sister-in-law Bea, and nephew Adam of Phuket, Thailand; a sister, Victoria, in Danvers, Massachusetts; and a sister, Elizabeth, and brother, John, of Rochester, New York.

In lieu of cards or flowers, please make donations to your local Hospice organization.