Marlene Falkenheim De Lancie

1922 - 2021

Marlene Falkenheim De Lancie
January 29, 1922 - October 29, 2020
Born Marianne Helene Falkenheim in Heidelberg, Germany, Marlene lived her early years in Konigsberg, East Prussia, with her parents, Curt and Ella, and younger sister, Renate. Raised in a medical family going back generations, Marlene's memories included accompanying her father on his patient rounds and being inspired by his concern and help for those in need. When Nazis took power in 1933 Curt was stripped of his hospital position for being Jewish. In 1936 Marlene, age 14, was forced to leave friends and relatives behind as the family found refuge in Rochester, New York. "Immigration to the USA," she later said, gave her "a firm belief in the preservation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights … and in giving back to that society which had allowed me to become part of it and to live free from persecution."
Despite the language hurdle, Marlene excelled in the then male-dominated field of Life Sciences, earning a BS in Biology at age 20 from the University of Rochester, followed by a Masters in Biochemistry from UR and medical research positions at UR, Columbia, and Harvard. At UC Berkeley, backed by a predoctoral fellowship from the Atomic Energy Commission, she used radioactive isotopes to study mineral metabolism in healing bone fractures. By the time she earned her PhD in Biochemistry, Marlene was credited with 18 journal publications in her field.
Living at Cal's International House, Marlene made many lifelong friends and met fellow grad student Richard Henry De Lancie, whom she married in 1950. Richard's Naval Reserve service brought them to Washington DC, where son Nicolas was born in 1952, followed in 1955 by Steven, whom she would lose to AIDS in 1991. The couple later settled in San Mateo, California, where Philip was born in 1957. Marlene and Richard were married for 27 years.
In 1950s San Mateo, Marlene began the civic engagement that was her passion for the rest of her life. She served as president and treasurer of the San Mateo Parents' Nursery School, where she met many of the extraordinary like-minded women with whom she collaborated in the decades that followed. She helped design and implement a co-parent program that facilitated desegregation of San Mateo schools and was a board member of the Child Care Coordinating Council. She applied her formidable organizing skills to political campaigns including the 1964 fight to uphold the California Fair Housing Act, the election of the first African-American to San Mateo's school board, and McGovern for President, for which she ran the county headquarters. She was active in the League of Women Voters, served on the board of the county's Planned Parenthood Association, and devoted herself to fundraising for Music at Kohl Mansion.
Throughout, Marlene maintained a deep, longstanding involvement with the ACLU of Northern California, which included serving on its board, helping to found the San Mateo County chapter, and leading decades of annual fundraising campaigns. She was also the lead petitioner in a California Supreme Court decision upholding the right to private conversation for pretrial jail detainees. In 2001 Marlene was admitted to the San Mateo County Women's Hall of Fame and honored by both the county's Board of Supervisors and the California State Assembly for her "outstanding accomplishments and contributions."
Marlene loved the mountains, skiing and hiking into her 80s. She enjoyed ACT and classical music, including the SF Symphony and Music at Kohl, well into her 90s. She loved the daily paper, crossword puzzles, historical novels, PBS News Hour, a good game of Rummikub, and spending time with her six grandchildren. Sharp to the end, she died at 98 in her San Mateo home of 54 years, cared for by the family she loved. She is survived by Nicolas and Philip, their wives Caroline Moody and Deirdre Murphy, her grandchildren Nicole, Olivia, Chloe, Sophie, Annie, and Dylan, her brother-in-law Stuart Brewster and his children Karen and Andrea (and her family), her nephew John de Lancie (and his family), and many cousins worldwide. She will be deeply missed by her family, friends, and all those she mentored, inspired, and impacted in her long, accomplished life.
A memorial will be held when conditions permit. Donations in Marlene's honor may be made to Music at Kohl Mansion.