OBITUARY MARY FRANCES HOOKER CLAUDSON

March 4, 1933, to July 4, 2014

Mary Hooker Claudson was born on March 4, 1933, in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Her parents were Robert Eugene Hooker, a staunch Republican, and Winifred Cecelia Strachan Hooker Moore, who gave Mary the middle name Frances in honor of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Democrat inaugurated President on Mary's birth date. Mary died on July 4, 2014, in Poulsbo, Washington, of complications from Alzheimer's Disease.

From childhood, Mary was a good student and a lover of books. As a freshman in high school, she met Tom Claudson, who had moved to Klamath Falls from Pasadena, California. Tom was less studious than Mary, but she convinced him to study, and he convinced her to date him all through high school. Mary was co-valedictorian of her high school class. She went to college first at Dominican College, in San Rafael, California, and then at the University of Oregon, where she received a B.A. degree in English Literature in 1955 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa honorary society.

Within days after her college graduation, on June 25, 1955, Mary married her high school sweetheart Tom at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Klamath Falls. Mary and Tom settled in Richland, Washington, where Tom worked at the Hanford Nuclear Site for many years. Although they spent most of their married life in Richland, Mary and Tom also lived at various times in Corvallis, Oregon while Tom got his Ph.D. in Metallurgy, Bellevue, Washington, and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, before they moved in 2006 to Port Ludlow, Washington, where Tom now resides.

Mary was preceded in death by her parents, by her only brother, Robert Eugene Hooker, Jr., and by an infant daughter, Susan Elizabeth Claudson. She is survived by her husband of 59 years, Tom Claudson, by four children, Mary Theresa Hupp Alfred Hupp, Robert Mark Claudson, Rosemary Anne Larson Troy Larson, and Thomas Michael Claudson Danika Claudson, as well as by six grandchildren, James Robert Hupp, Margaret Cecelia Hupp, Kathleen Elizabeth Larson, Megan Alicia Larson, Caroline Grace Claudson, and Molly Abigail Claudson.

Mary always believed reading was necessary for both education and pleasure. By reading out loud to her children and sharing her favorite books and authors, Mary passed her love of the written word to them, and they in turn continued the tradition with Mary's grandchildren.

For several years Mary was a librarian for Christ the King Catholic School in Richland. Her dream was to be a writer, and around age seventy she was proud to join a Questers chapter and also to win an essay contest. Her family was saddened to watch her lose her enjoyment of reading as she suffered from Alzheimer's in the last few years of her life. Along with reading and education, Mary loved her family, her friends, and her faith. To all of these she devoted her time and attention for eighty-one years.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated on August 2, 2014, at 10:00a.m., at Christ the King Catholic Church in Richland. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Christ the King Catholic School library or to the Alzheimer's Foundation.