Mary Hooker Crary died on June 6 in Bloomfield, Conn. at the age of 97.

Mary was born on Oct. 3, 1927 in Hartford, Conn., the daughter of Margaret Eddy Hooker and Joseph Kilbourne Hooker. She attended the Oxford School before joining her older sister, Isabel, at Chatham Hall in Chatham, Va. for her high school years, where no one who knew her will be surprised to learn she continued to make many lifelong friends, something she never stopped doing.

From there it was on to Bennet Junior College in Millbrook, N.Y.

On Jan. 20, 1950 she married J. Noyes Crary who was 19 years her senior and glad he was still available. They moved into a beautiful little red Cape next to a brook on a cul de sac in West Hartford where they began family life with two children, Joe and Margot.

Fourteen years later they moved into a new house built on land in Farmington, Conn. that had been in her family for over 200 years due to her being a direct descendant of Hartford’s founder, Thomas Hooker.

In addition to being a devoted wife and mother, Mary continued volunteer work at the Hartford Hospital that began in her early 20’s and which she kept in her 80’s. There is no doubt that she brightened up the days of countless hospital patients over many decades just by showing up. She also served on the hospital’s advisory board. In addition, she was a trustee of the Renbrook School and spent many years as a volunteer at the Asylum Hill Congregational Church where she shone as a sandwich maker par excellence for the annual Boar’s Head Festival.

She started playing golf at an early age and was a lifelong member of the Hartford Golf Club.

Mary loved her fellow human beings and wanted to know what made them tick. It made her an immensely generous person with her time and her resources. She was full of fun and energy and empathy and overflowing kindness. She never wanted to miss a minute of any gathering of her family and friends, and as far as we know she didn’t. She was up for anything and brought a contagious level of enthusiasm for whatever was next, whether that be riding an elephant with her four-year-old granddaughter, Margot. at a local fair or ,many years later, riding a raft down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River at the age of 73 with her family, which included that same by then teenage granddaughter.

She was even known to have jumped out of a giant fake cake wearing a nude body stocking on a male friend’s 40th birthday when she was 56.

She took on all who were willing at the card game Spite and Malice, and even when confined to a wheelchair after breaking her hip could still play a mean game of Corn Hole, one time sinking 16 bags in a row (a feat her opponent son never approached) just months before her passing.

It was that broken hip that prevented her from traveling to her beloved Martha’s Vineyard which signaled the end of a lifetime of summers on the Island. Since the age of two she had previously missed only two years: one during WW II and one during Covid.

The Vineyard was a huge part of her life. Her parents had a house built in Harthaven in 1929, and it became the source of a lifetime of treasured memories. She and her sister, Isabel, joined their parents, Joe and Margaret Hooker as avid members of the Edgartown Golf Club and they both played well into their 80’s.

She was predeceased by her husband, Noyes, her granddaughter and great pal, Margot, her sister, Isabel and her late-in-life partner, Sam Fuller.

She leaves her children, Joe and Margot and their respective spouses, Hilly and Peter, nieces Sarah Martin, Clare Edwards, their families, and legions of friends who never met anyone quite like her.

There will be a memorial service on July 30 at 1 p.m. at the Asylum Hill Church in Hartford, Conn. and a reception at the Hartford Golf Cub to follow.

In lieu of flowers please send donations to the Helen and Harry Gray Cancer Center, Hartford Hospital or the Margot Willis Crary Scholarship Fund at the Bay School, Blue Hill, Me.