Marie M. Mathews
Dec. 25, 1919-June 23, 2012
Mountain View, California
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Marie Mathews died Saturday, June 23, after a brief illness. She was 92 and had lived in Mountain View since 1955.

Marie was born in Greece and immigrated with her mother to America through Ellis Island in 1923. She grew up in Manhattan and Brooklyn until she went to Children's Village in upstate New York in the early 1930s. Later, she went to live with the Slawson family in White Plains as a mother's helper. The Slawsons, Wally and Edna and their children Ann Louise and Jack, would become Marie's life-long family.

During the war years, Marie worked in New York City until she joined the American Red Cross in 1945. She served throughout Western Europe and, after the war, in the Far East, where she met her future husband, Jim, then a U.S. Army officer. She always looked back on her Red Cross days as the most exciting time of her life.

After marriage, Marie worked as a homemaker, raised her two sons and held several part-time jobs in the Mountain View school system. Always very active, Marie made friends easily and was genuinely interested in anyone she met. Her life can be measured by these deep and abiding friendships, many of which extended 40 or more years.

Marie is survived by her son, Jamie of Irvine, Calif.; son, Bill of Mountain View; and brother, Jack Slawson of Virginia Beach, Va. Her husband, Jim, preceded her in death in 2003.