b. April 28, 1927, San Francisco, CA 

d. December 11, 2019, Veneta, OR

A celebrated educator, and prodigious author, Mary was also an accomplished artist and musician and an ardent outdoorsperson who devoted her life’s work to the survival of a just human society on the Earth.

The outstanding enthusiasm Mary brought to teaching biology at San Diego State University was recognized nationally when she was named the first National Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Her determination to ensure high quality instruction led her to author an undergraduate textbook, Contemporary Biology, the success of which enabled Mary to expand her intellectual contributions to some of the biggest challenges facing humankind. This included the development of an interdisciplinary course called Our Common Future, as well as two subsequent books, Ariadne’s Thread, and In Search of Human Nature, as well as scores of peer-reviewed articles.  She appeared in the national media and corresponded frequently with her government representatives, and her double-sided, single-spaced holiday letters were legendary.

Mary and her sister, Barbara (McConnell), grew up on the southern flank of San Francisco’s highest natural feature, Mt. Davidson which is named – somewhat prophetically – for George Davidson, a charter member of the Sierra Club; her parents, Walter and Eleanor (Crafton) Lawrence, took the girls to Yosemite National Park and, while pursuing three degrees at U.C. Berkeley, Mary honed her backpacking and climbing skills, including an ascent of Mt. McKinley (Denali) that was cut short by the loss of a pack animal and crucial equipment during a river crossing, and a solo trip on the John Muir Trail, in which she was able to extend her three days’ food supply to a week by fishing. She would later instill a love of the backcountry in her three nephews, Mike (Sonora, CA), Dave (San Ramon, CA) and Bill (Okemos, MI) McConnell, which they have in turned passed along to their children. 

After two decades at San Diego State, Mary took positions at George Mason University, Denison University and the University of Montevallo and travelled widely, visiting East and South Asia, and West and Southern Africa in search of cultural models that might inform alternatives to Western worldviews, and the dysfunctional misunderstandings of neo-classical economics. While Mary engaged deeply with these issues on an academic level, she also strove to “walk the walk” in her own life, at one point moving to Oregon in order to join an intentional community in the hills east of Eugene, but ultimately settled in Cottage Grove. There, she became active in the community, supporting women-owned businesses, and helping the local farm store rebuild following a fire. Her main interest, however, remained in education, and she became a champion of the outstanding work being done at Al Kennedy Alternative High School. When fully independent living was no longer tenable, Mary moved around the corner to Magnolia Gardens, and finally to Morison Landing Retirement Center in Veneta, where she spent the last years of her life enjoying the sort of loving care we all hope for. She is remembered for explaining how her early training in rock climbing helped her avoid the falls that plague us as we age, while her ice skating enabled her to land without injury. She was a lifelong aficionado of Volvos, teaching her nephews how to operate a manual transmission in her old sedan, which she drove up and down Highway 5, counting the semi tractor-trailers bearing the iconic diagonal radiator belt.

Mary married Richard C. Houston and Robert B. Clark, but had no children; her love of family and children was, instead, channeled through her never-ending support of her nephews through holiday visits and generous gifts of knowledge of life’s lessons and the great outdoors.