Mary Sargent died Sept. 3, 2007. She was born in 1922, in Baker, Ore., the solitary, much-indulged, much managed child of Blaine and Lillian Spencer Hallock. She went to local schools except for three high school years at Helen Bush School in Seattle, Wash. She graduated from Baker High School. She attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., where she earned a bachelor’s degree in education. After college she taught second grade in Portland, Ore.
In 1945, she married Ross E. Wells, a petroleum geologist. They lived in several Rocky Mountain states, finally settling in Denver, Colo. They had four children, Matthew Blaine Wells of Hailey, Idaho, Miriam Ross Wells, now Mrs. S. C. Holley of Longmont, Colo., Ann Spencer Wells, now Mrs. Richard Hamilton of Littleton, Colo., and Elizabeth Morrow Wells of Waldoboro, Maine.
After Mrs. Sargent and Mr. Wells were divorced in 1965, she returned to college and earned a master’s degree in biology for her work at the University of Michigan Biological Station and the University of Denver.
She was employed by the Kent School in Littleton, Colo., teaching biology and serving as dean of students. Her free time activities included singing in a first-rate, 75-voice, church choir, teaching knitting in Denver’s continuing education program and producing, as co-author, photographs and texts for The Mushrooms of Colorado, published by the Denver Museum of Natural History.
From the Denver area she emigrated to Dedham, Mass., where as something called The Coordinator of Co-education for Noble and Greenough School, she helped to implement the schools becoming a co-ed institution, interviewed all young ladies applying for admission to the school, assured old boy alums that the process changes were (trust me) really for the best, and taught both general and advanced biology.
In 1975, she married Lucius Manlius (Manny) Sargent, a Boston teacher of mathematics, thereby becoming the step-mother of Peter Bradlee Sargent of San Francisco, Pamela Fessenden Sargent of Plymouth, Mass., Lucius Manlius Sargent III of Westwood, Mass., and Dorothea Amory (Amy) Sargent, now Mrs. Andrew Swank of Rye, N.Y. Shortly after her marriage Mrs. Sargent gave up teaching, but later returned to work as assistant editor for the mutual fund newsletter published by United Business Services of Boston, Mass. In 1981, she and Mr. Sargent served as co-directors of the national Audubon Society Summer Camp on Hog Island in Muscongus Bay.
When they retired in 1988, the Sargents removed from South Natick, Mass. to Bath. They lived full lives, enjoyed friends and activities and volunteering in assorted capacities. Theirs was always the most congenial and rewarding of marriages, blessed with a wide range of shared interests, activities, friends, eight wonderful children and 12 beloved grandchildren. Truly they lived happily ever after.
Services will be private. Arrangements re by David E. Desmond & Son Funeral Home, 638 High St., Bath.
Memorial gifts in Mrs. Sargent’s name may be made to: Berea College, Berea, Kentucky 40404.
Used with permission from: The Record Courier, Baker City, Oregon, October 18, 2007
Transcribed by: Belva Ticknor