Obituary of Mary Jean Curtin

The person we knew as Mom was born Mary Jean Lester on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1924 in Malone, New York. In this rural farming community,her father had a job at the local power plant and the whole family did chores on the family farm and managed to survive the great depression. When WW2 ended, our parents met during their college years. Dad studied engineering at Clarkson University and Mom received a teaching credential from SUNY at Potsdam and for awhile she taught in a one room schoolhouse. Dad accepted a job with Kodak and during the sixties we divided our time between New York and California. Our parents had an active social life, played golf and Bridge and had many friends. Mom was a great mother to us, always compassionate and had an optimistic outlook on life. She, like her mother, was an artist and mainly worked in oils and pencil drawing. After retiring, our parents moved back to California where they lived until my Dad’s passing in 2002. At that point, Mom decided to move back to New York near to my sister. She continued to be healthy into her 90s and lived a long and active life.

Our mother passed gently into the next chapter of her spirit’s journey on August 17, 2020. She is survived by two sons, Michael and Jim (Mary Curtin), a daughter, Ellen (Michael Andrieu), five grandchildren: Nathan Curtin, Jeanette Wolfe (Payton Wolfe), Hallie Andrieu, Devin Andrieu, and Jessica Trierweiler, and two great-grandchildren, Logan Trierweiler and Piper Trierweiler.