Mary Blazquez Wylie

After a long and fulfilling life, Mary Blazquez Wylie, 96, shuffled off this mortal coil in Saline, Michigan on December 12, 2024.

Born in Salamanca, Spain on April 14,1928, to Jose and Atanasia Blazquez, Mary was the second youngest child of five and the middle daughter. She grew up in Detroit Michigan, graduated from Western High School, then Henry Ford Hospital School of Nursing & Hygiene with a RN degree, class of 1949. Her favorite nursing assignment was the newborn nursery. It was at Henry Ford Hospital that she met and fell in love with John Herman Wylie, Jr. MD, a general surgery resident. On June 27, 1952, she and John married. They were married 59 years, welcoming 6 children,13 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren.

Mary was a student of nature and consummate collector of both natural treasures and experiences. She loved birding, tending to her garden, reading, and traveling, especially to national parks and sites of natural beauty. Mary collected rocks, shells, postcards and aspired to visit all 50 state capitols. She cataloged birds and flowers she had seen on her many trips, making tidy notes in the margins of her Audubon guides, almost as if collecting and preserving those sightings in her memories.

Mary had a talent and passion for gardening. She was the quintessential cultivator from cuttings, leaves and roots. She shared her gardening talent for 21 years at the Okemos High School greenhouse. She was known to surreptitiously take small snippets from plants at garden centers, green houses, state capitol buildings, and even foreign countries in order to propagate the specimens. Those small snippets would grow into large, lush plants, which she freely shared with friends and family. She perfected growing african violets and orchids, and single handedly tamed the woods surrounding her northern Michigan homestead.

Mary also was known for her love of puzzles and games. She played the Detroit Free Press jumble every day, and usually solved it faster than anyone who was visiting. Her games of choice were bridge, backgammon, and cribbage. She and John kept track of every game of cribbage they played for decades, and she continued documenting particularly good hands or unusual events up through the very last games she played.

Mary’s family will fondly remember the attentiveness with which she maintained her connections to others. She was sure to make their favorite meal when they visited, to send them clippings from the newspaper she thought they would enjoy or find interesting, and to sit up late chatting and playing cards.

Mary is preceded in death by her husband, John, her parents, her brothers Vincent and Augustine, sisters Angela and Elisa, son David Wylie, and son-in-law Steve Hallenbeck. She is survived by her children Cathy Hallenbeck (Steve) of North Carolina; Michael Wylie (Angela) of Michigan; Robert Wylie of Colorado; Carol Wylie (Amy Brow) of Michigan; Lisa Bulko (Rudy) of Michigan; grandchildren Nathan Wylie, Jacob Wylie, Melissa Brackmann (Eric), Leon Albert, Samuel Wylie (Patrick Connor), Miles Lentz, Corey Lentz (Katelyn Woods), Hunter Brow (Kayla), Ake Youngdahl, Anna Bulko, Reuben Bulko, Josef Bulko, Gwendolyn Bulko; and great-grandchildren Robert Brackmann, Molly Brackmann, and Corbin Thomas. A celebration of Mary’s life will take place at a future date.

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