Emily Wright

Emily Wright

September 3, 2023

Sacramento, California - Emily Mason Wright. A retired therapist, she died last month of an unexpected and rapidly progressive autoimmune condition. She was 76 years old.

She grew up in Salina, Kansas, spending much of her childhood and teenage years playing violin and finding comfort in the small but devoted bohemian and arts worlds of central Kansas. She attended the University of Kansas, worked as an air photo interpreter and cartographer, traveled and lived in Latin America, and became a mother.

After the end of her first marriage, she studied geography and history at California State University, Sacramento; and then later returned to CSUS for a master's degree in social work. She worked for many years as a therapist for child survivors of abuse, primarily at the Child and Family Institute; and provided clinical supervision for staff at Sacramento Self-Help Housing.

She was a poet, a devoted keeper of journals, a voracious reader, and as she put it recently, an "ardent feminist." She was a founding member of the La Semilla Cultural Center, and of the Sacramento Labor Chorus; and a volunteer docent for the California State Indian Museum. She walked many miles every week along the American River Parkway, and had a deep love and knowledge of the plants and animals of Northern California.

She is preceded in death by her husband, and life partner of more than four decades, Ernie Isaacs; as well as by her brother Peter. She is survived by her son Joe Wright and his wife Jen Stevens, and their daughter Lucy; as well as by her sister Molly Cooley, her brother John Mason; her nieces and nephews; and Ernie's children, grandchildren, and nephews. In lieu of flowers, consider donations to the California Indian Basketweavers' Association, the National Network of Abortion Funds, and/or the Nursing Recognition Fund of the UC Davis Medical Center.