Mary Hitchcock Cone

November 27, 1923 - February 28, 2018

Mary Hitchcock Cone, author, mother, friend, activist, and longtime Marin County resident died in hospice in Sacramento on February 28. She was 94.

Mary was born November 27, 1923, in San Francisco and raised in Berkeley, graduating from Berkeley High School in 1941. Mary attended College of Marin where she met her husband, Russell G. Cone, Jr., whom she wed at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco in 1943 prior to Russ’ deployment to the South Pacific and Japan in the U.S. Army.

During World War II, Mary and her sister volunteered with the Red Cross serving coffee and doughnuts to U.S. servicemen about to ship out to Europe and the Pacific.

Mary worked for San Francisco Supervisor Bill Blake, Bechtel Engineering Company, The Nature Conservancy, and Trust for Public Land.

Mary joined the Book Passage Writers Group in 1997 and in 2011 published Moose Mash and Other Stories with FolkHeart Press.

In 2009, Mary moved from Marin to Sacramento to be close to her daughters, who cared for her, assisted by loving, dedicated caregivers.

Mary is survived by her daughters, Christine Steele Cone of Cotati and Lucinda Hitchcock Cone and son-inlaw Michael Sicilia of Sacramento. She was preceded in death by her husband, Russell G. Cone, Jr., retired City Hall reporter for the San Francisco Examiner.

A memorial will be held on Sunday, July 22, 2018, at the Falkirk Cultural Center in San Rafael, California, at 2:00 p.m. Memorial donations may be made to The Nature Conservancy