Mary Russell Oleson, who considered herself a lifelong globetrotter, died of complications related to dementia on October 18 in Towson, MD. She was 87.

Mary was born on August 15, 1935, on the island of Shameen in Guangzhou, where her father, Robert Russell, worked for the First National City Bank of New York (now Citibank). For five years she lived there with him and her mother, Bertha (nee Sears), as well as in Singapore and Manila, until the family, including her younger brother Ralph, returned to her parents' home state of Maine. In 1941, the bank sent her father to Shanghai, where the Japanese interned him in a camp in Pudong. He was repatriated two years later, and the reunited family lived in Saco, ME, where Bertha worked as a local public-school teacher. After the war, Mary's father was again posted to Manila and to various cities in Japan, where she would travel to visit him every summer.

She went to high school at Thornton Academy in Saco and then on to Wellesley College, where she graduated in 1956 with a BA in Mathematics. While there, she roomed in Severance dormitory and enjoyed rowing on winning crews and producing plays as president of the Shakespeare Society. She often referred to her time at Wellesley as among the best years of her life and made close friendships there that lasted the rest of her life. One friend, her then roommate Merle Golden Bogin, arranged the "blind date" at which Mary met John Oleson, her future husband. He proposed to her two years later by mail to Stockholm, where she was doing graduate work, and in 1957 they were married in Saco. They then lived for a year in Chicago, Mary working as a statistician and John as a lawyer. The following spring, they moved to Washington, D.C., where he began work in the State Department and she began her eventual thirty-year career with the Coast and Geodetic Survey (now NGS).

In the 1960s, John was posted to Bilbao, where their daughter Lisa was born; to Mexico City, where their son Neil was born; and to Bogotá, where their son Eric was born. In Bogotá, Mary taught math at the American school and helped a young Peace Corps volunteer with his plan to create a women’s cottage industry making knit Irish-fisherman-type sweaters in the suburb of Ciudad Kennedy. In the 1970s, the family lived in Paraguay, Bolivia, Egypt, and Honduras, where John served as director or deputy director of the USAID mission and where Mary continued to teach math in American schools, organized social functions related to John’s diplomatic work, and joined women’s groups doing charity work.

In 1981, they returned to their home in Chevy Chase, MD, and she went back to her job at NGS. The Survey sent her to take courses at the University of Maryland in College Park, as a result of which she obtained a BS degree in Computer Science in 1986 and became an IT Specialist at NGS. As a feminist, she said she liked to think that, in the process of studying and working in the field of IT at that time, she was doing her small part in adding cracks to the “glass ceiling.”

In 2000, she and John moved to Baltimore to be near their daughter and her husband Brendan Meagher and their sons, Declan and Finnian. Soon thereafter, she became a volunteer Democratic Party activist and continued as such to the end of her life. She retired from NGS in 2007 and, although she would continue to miss her work and colleagues at the Silver Spring offices, she soon traded her coding skills for memoir writing, researching her family history, and creating detailed scrapbooks to accompany her writing. She often said that she always thought of her life as a series of adventures—with both new experiences and new challenges. Indeed, throughout their retirement, she and John continued their globetrotting adventures, domestically and abroad. They were also avid patrons of the theatre, both in New York City and the D.C. area, and of concerts and museums. Whenever she could, Mary attended her Wellesley class reunions, most recently her 60th, and became a devoted donor to the Davis Museum of Art there. Most of all, she enjoyed following the activities of her beloved grandsons, including a third, Jasper Davenport, born in 2008.

Mary has been predeceased by her parents, her brother, and her husband. She is survived by her children, her grandsons, and her nephew, Nathan Russell. Her remains will be interred with those of her husband at the DACOR section of St. Paul's Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington DC. A celebration of her life will be held at a later date to be determined. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Wellesley College or to a charity of your choice.

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