Mary Mondo O’Brien

November 25, 1931 - January 8, 2021

Mary Mondo O’Brien died at home surrounded by family at the age of 89. She was born to Giuseppe and Anna Mondo in Merced, California. Mary and her sister Jeanne grew up in an extended Italian farming family in the San Joaquin Valley that epitomized the classic immigrant story. Her father left the poverty of rural Northern Italy to seek opportunities in California, ultimately settling in Merced where he and his brothers established Mondo Brothers’ Tomatoes.

Mary’s first language was Piemontese, a language spoken in Northern Italy, then Spanish, which she learned playing with the children of her Mexican neighbors. She began to learn English only after Jeanne started school and shared this new language with her little sister. Mary remained friends with many of her grammar and high school friends her entire life. She left Merced to attend Dominican College in San Rafael and then became a grammar school teacher at St. William’s School in Los Altos. The large class size of 48 3rd graders led her to develop her “velvet glove/ iron fist” teaching style, which she later successfully adapted to parenting. It was while teaching at St. William’s that she met her beloved husband Ed (on a blind date!) and began a love affair that lasted the rest of their lives. Together they raised four children, Anne, Pat (Kate), Tim (Simin), and Matt (Martha). Mary was “Nuna” to her five beloved grandchildren - Yasmeen, William, Safiya, Luke, and Samir.

For 61 years, Mary and Ed enjoyed a grand adventure which included camping trips when the children were young, regular trips to their mountain house in Twain Harte, and exotic world travels with family and friends. No destination was too obscure, from Istanbul to Medellin, especially if one of their children was living there.

They had an active parish life at Saint Bartholomew’s in San Mateo and supported many community philanthropies, including Mills Peninsula Hospital. Mary never forgot her Northern Italian roots. She was a top notch Italian cook, travelled with Ed to Italy as frequently as possible to visit friends and relatives, and even made life-long friends with an Italian family on a plane simply because she heard the family speaking Italian. For the last thirty years, she was an active Board member of the Piemontesi Nel Mondo of Northern California, which seeks to preserve Piemontese culture and language.

Mary took great pride in and put much effort into shepherding the family with dedication, inspiration, and creativity. She was an accomplished seamstress, worked with leaded glass and upholstery, and came up with endless arts and crafts projects to amuse and inspire her children well into adulthood.

Mary’s sense of adventure, warmth, creativity, welcoming nature and pure joie de vivre were the bedrock of the O’Brien family. Mary and Ed’s home was always open and a gathering place - often in costumes - for extended family and friends. Together with Ed, Mary instilled in her children an appreciation for education and intellectual inquiry, an open-mindedness and curiosity about different cultures, compassion for others, and the importance of hard work. She treasured friendship. Mary was a model of love and devotion to family, and of courage and strength in the face of difficulty. She measured up in every way.