Obituary Obituary (March 23, 2005)

Mary Ann Kaisel

Community volunteer

Mary Ann Kaisel of Menlo Park, a past president of the Woodside-Atherton Auxiliary to the Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, died March 8 of pulmonary disease. She was 77.

A memorial service will be held Tuesday, March 29, at 4 p.m. at Stanford Memorial Church. A reception will follow at the Cantor Center for Visual Arts.

In the 1980s, Ms. Kaisel served as president of the Committee for Art at Stanford and continued her involvement with the museum for the rest of her life.

Ms. Kaisel was born Mary Ann Shriver on May 16 in Gallatin, Tennessee, into a Scots-Irish family. Her mother died when she was 7 and she was raised by her aunt, Frances Fitzpatrick Wright, a well-known children's author.

Ms. Kaisel exemplified the traditions of Southern hospitality, with a love of Southern cooking, conversation, dance and entertainment, say family members.

After graduating from Stephens College in Missouri, Ms. Kaisel worked for NBC at Rockefeller Center in New York City.

In 1955 she moved to California with her son from her first marriage, Franklin Jones, and worked as executive assistant to William Rambo, director of the Stanford Electronics Laboratories.

There she was set up on a blind date with Stanley Francis Kaisel, a graduate student in the department. They were married in 1958. An early Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Dr. Kaisel founded Microwave Electronics Corp. in 1959.

While raising their family, the Kaisels lived in Atherton and Woodside, where she was an active parent at Woodside Elementary and Menlo schools and a community volunteer.

After working at the Quail & Thistle shop in Woodside, she opened an antique and gift shop with several partners that was known as the Woodside Mercantile Association.

Ms. Kaisel enjoyed traveling with her family, visiting Mexico, Italy, Japan, China, Greece, the Caribbean, France and Turkey. After Dr. Kaisel's death in 1995, she moved from Portola Valley to Menlo Park, where she restored a classic Eichler home.

She is survived by her son, David Allen Kaisel of Oakland; her daughter, Ann Penland Callan; and four grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her son, Franklin.

The family prefers memorial donations to the Allied Arts Guild, the Mid-Peninsula Hospice Foundation or the Pulmonary Rehabilitation Clinic at Sequoia Hospital.

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