Mary Sarah Ofsthun (Oliver) passed away on October 23rd after a four-year battle with Alzheimer’s Disease. Mary grew up in the West End of Duluth, MN, as the 8th of nine children of Alice (nee MacDonald) and Harvey Oliver. Mary graduated from Denfeld High School in 1948, and a few years later, married Stan Ofsthun, who sat next to her in homeroom for many years.

Stan’s career in the aerospace industry led them to move around the country, first to Baltimore, Maryland, where baby Stephen joined older siblings Pattie and David.

They were soon joined by baby Norma in Baltimore and baby Stan in Littleton, Colorado.

From there, the family moved to Huntsville, Alabama, then western New York, where they lived in Niagara Falls, Newfane, and finally Depew, a suburb of Buffalo. Looking back later in life, Mary told her children that she had always liked to move because it gave her a chance to make new friends and clean out the clutter. She always kept the house ready for company to stop by, and had dinner ready on the table when Stan got home from work, while caring for her five children. While the kids were in school, Mary worked for years as bookkeeper and as a school aide in a special needs classroom. She was also active in the Altar Guild and women’s group at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church. Every year, Mary would bake more than 20 kinds of Christmas cookies and deliver beautiful trays of cookies to friends and relatives far and near.

Mary loved to change up her hair style, with the running joke that when she asked Stan how he liked it, he would say “it’s different” before any compliments.

In January of 1987, Mary and Stan were in a car crash that left Mary with a broken back that required steel rods for stabilization. When Stan passed away three months later, her sister Cleo moved from Duluth to Buffalo and lovingly cared for Mary for the remainder of the year until the body cast could be permanently removed. A few years later, Mary moved back to the Duluth area, and bought Stan’s dream house on a lake in northern Wisconsin, which she loved to share with visiting children and grandchildren.

For several years, she enjoyed visiting with her many relatives in Duluth, and helping out her aging mother-in-law Frieda.

In 2004, Mary moved to Warrenton, Missouri, to escape the snow and live near Stan and Bev. A couple of years later, she moved to a brand new senior apartment in O’Fallon, just a mile from them. Mary loved to care for their menagerie of pets when they traveled for Bev to compete in marathons and triathlons.

Having never been able to travel Europe with Stan, she enjoyed traveling to London, England, and Rome, Italy during February vacation breaks. She also enjoyed many visits to Boston to visit Norma and Steve’s families, as well as going to Costa Rica with Norma’s family to spend time with Alexis’ parents and extended family.

In 2010, Mary’s children and children gathered at Pattie’s house on Lake Ontario for her 80th birthday party. While in Buffalo, Mary enjoyed catching up with her friends from Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Depew. Sadly, the next time everyone gathered was for Pattie’s funeral two years later.

For several years, Mary enjoyed life at her senior apartment, playing Mah Jong, Scrabble and Sequence with her many friends. She also loved helping her friends by driving them to outings and doctors’ appointments. Meanwhile, she stayed in touch with many friends from St. John’s Church in Warrenton, while attending Holy Cross in O’Fallon.

In 2014, Mary was diagnosed with dementia, and by early 2015 she moved into Barathaven Alzheimer’s Special Care Center in Dardenne Prairie, MO, just a few miles away. There, she received incredible love and affection from the care team, later augmented by Heartland hospice care.

At first, she became known for her never-ending walking around the ring of hallways that surrounded a central courtyard. She loved to greet staff with a smile and a hug, no matter how many times she would run into them each day. She especially loved to have Stan visit each week, and other family visit from out of town several times per year. Over the next four years, she progressed through the seven stages of Alzheimer’s disease, gradually losing her ability to care for herself, to converse, to walk, and finally to chew or swallow normally.

While it got harder to coax a smile out of her in the last year, she remained calm and peaceful, and content to have a visitor hold her hand.

Mary would have celebrated her 88th birthday on October 31, 2018, but she died peacefully in her sleep on October 23rd with her children Norma and Stan and their spouses by her side for the last few days. She was preceded in death by siblings Clara, John (Jack), Gilbert, Pearl, Harvey (Bud), Margaret (Peg), Charles (Chuck), and Shirley (June), by her husband Stan Ofsthun, and her children Patricia (Pattie) and Stephen (Steve).

Mary is survived by daughter Norma and her husband Alexis Porras of Lexington, MA, son Stanley C. (Stan) and his wife Beverly (Bev) of O’Fallon, MO; son-in-law James (Jim) Larocca of Cape Coral, FL, and daughter-in-law Chris Ofsthun of Littleton, MA, as well as grandchildren Dawn Baker of Charleston, SC, Neil Seifert of Lockport, NY, Haley Ofsthun of Boston, MA, Peter Ofsthun of Littleton, MA, Victor Porras of Manhattan, NY, and Adrian Porras of Lexington, MA, and great grandchildren Amber Baker, Alec Baker, Skylyr Siefert and Harrison Seifert of Lockport, NY. Her spirit lives on in all of them.