Mary V. Allen

A memorial service will be held in her honor on October 7th at 10am at Lighthouse Memorial & Receptions.

Born in Seattle, WA on July 18th, 1954 to Kenneth and Virginia (Floyd) Anderson, Mary V Anderson was the eldest of five children. Her childhood nickname was “Merrivee”, which was a name she was very fond of.

Mary attended Our Lady of Fatima Church and School for elementary (where she would later be married) and Queen Anne High School. She went to the University of Washington where she majored in math and minored in computer science, which was so new it was not even a major yet. Mary had a lifelong love of math, and would go on to help run a math club at her daughters’ school and tutor several people in math. She also studied both French and Russian, as she always had an interest in Russia, and even managed to take a trip there with her brother, Erik.

Mary met her husband Ed while he was visiting his cousin, who happened to be her next door neighbor at the time. He invited her to go camping, and that shared love of traveling and the outdoors extended through their 36 year marriage (August 27, 1983).

Mary moved to Torrance, CA at the end of 1982 and primarily worked as a Computer Systems Analysts for Kaiser. She then became a homemaker when she had her eldest in 1986 so she could focus on raising her children. She would always make sure they had plenty of extracurricular activities, everything from sports to dance and art classes to plays. She did a lot of volunteering, especially at St. Lawrence Martyr where her kids went to school, and spent many years in charge of crafts for their vacation bible school and was a Girl Scout troop leader for Laura’s class. She was very involved in her childrens’ activities, and could always be counted on to chaperone a field trip or sew costumes for a play.

Mary loved animals, especially penguins and koalas, and always treated the pets as family. She enjoyed speaking for her stuffed animals, Ron and Mummford, and making the pets talk. Mary had several hobbies, including many different kinds of crafts. She enjoyed many things such as marionettes and puppetry, crocheting and knitting, and most importantly, miniatures. Mary spent a lot of her time making different scenes out of miniatures and working with different groups online who all had a shared interest. When not crafting, she could often be seen with a logic puzzle book in her hand or playing a puzzle game.

Mary was preceded in death by her father Kenneth, mother Virginia, sister Linda, stepfather Bill, uncle Harry, aunt Marilyn, uncle Vic, and uncle George. She is survived by her husband Ed, daughter Kristen, daughter Laura (Garrett), brothers Erik and Ken, sister Katy, aunt Pat, cousin Mary Anne, cousin Vicky, nephews Nick (Gracia), Brien (Becky), Daniel, Sean, James, and Harry.