Mary Meyer Tradowsky
23 July 1925 – 17 December 2013

In 1961 in Florence, I was trying to find the entrance to the Palazzo Pitti and met Mary who was having the same trouble as I was. A spirited and attractive woman, 35 when we met, she became subsequently a friend for life. She had married Herb Meyer, her Berkeley university sweetheart, and together they had five children. Herb was a dairy farmer, and they had settled in the Salinas-Monterey area. Herb, however, did not share Mary’s passionate love for the arts, and so she had come to Italy on her own to fulfil that love.

I visited Herb and Mary in California. On another occasion, we met up in Southern California and, with the children, went to Disney Land. That last was a first for me. Mary always sparkled with life and enthusiasm, was an avid reader, and was interested in everything. A close friend of hers became terminally ill, and Mary spent much time with her. After Annemarie had died in 1966, the bond that had developed between Mary and her friend’s husband Walter developed into a romance. Recognizing that what she was doing was unconventional and shocking to many, Mary nevertheless divorced Herb and married Walter Tradowsky, a German immigrant, intellectual and former assistant theatre director. Theirs was a happy union until Walter’s death in 1988.

But Mary’s act was not without its painful consequences. While she always remained on good terms with Herb, her daughter Kathrine took the divorce poorly and eventually took her own life. Mary’s eldest daughter Elisabeth blamed Mary for her sister’s death and would not talk to her mother for years after. Her son Stephen became distant, and it was chiefly with Robert and her youngest child Susanne (the mother of Mary’s two grandchildren, Robert and Kristoffer) that she maintained her closest relationships.

Immobilising poor health kept Mary essentially confined to the ground floor of her home in Monterey, and she was surrounded by stacks and stacks of books and always retained a positive attitude. Whenever I would come through, we would go out for lunch – the last time being in September of this year. Her eccentricity only increased in time. She knew what she wanted in a restaurant and would send anything back if it did not conform to her expectations. Mary was no shrinking violent. On our last occasion she had asked before we left her house, “Do you mind if I just throw my bathrobe around me and go like this?”

Bob has told me that Mary had had a fall but was not injured. She was staying in a nursing facility because of a low body temperature. Bob had visited, and then Suzanne arrived when he left. Both had had good visits with their mother. Mary then suddenly and unexpectedly passed away in her sleep “with no pain or discomfort.” In her own way, she did it right. But she will be missed.