Longtime Santa Fean was ‘instigator’ who loved the arts, culture, education
Mara Robinson, who rose from humble beginnings to create a path that led to the fortification of the arts community in Santa Fe, died Dec. 24 in Albuquerque after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
She was 91.
Born Betty-Jane Dommer to an unwed teenage mother on June 6, 1929, Robinson was never deterred from pursuing her passion for the arts, said her daughter, Heather Robinson.
She grew up for a time in Pierce, Neb., then migrated to Vallejo, Calif., with her mother. But by age 16, eager to leave a difficult childhood, she moved to her singing teacher’s house in San Francisco and began performing operatic roles. On the stage, she was known as Tamara Lindova.
“She always wanted a better life for herself, but she was just drawn to music, opera,” her daughter said.
In 1957, Robinson met and married successful California businessman Chuck Robinson — later an undersecretary of state during the Gerald Ford administration. She started a small opera company in San Francisco, called Opera West, to support struggling local artists.
In the 1970s, the family moved to Santa Fe, falling in love with New Mexico’s unique traditions and the Santa Fe Opera. But her interest in all types of arts, from ballet to literature, never waned. In the process, she earned a master’s degree from St. John’s College, something that may have seemed unimaginable when she was a teenager and working as a housekeeper to fund her dreams of an arts career.
It was that constant curiosity, drive and purpose that set her mother apart, Heather Robinson said. Family members recalled her interest in the civil rights movement — her activism once led to a death threat — and even her devotion to help the arts community in Venice, Italy.
“She was the instigator,” Heather said. “Dad earned the money; she had the real passion for arts and culture and education.”
That background led Robinson and her husband to support some of the city’s most prominent arts outlets — the Santa Fe Opera, the Chamber Music Festival, the National Dance Institute of New Mexico, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, the Santa Fe Symphony and many others.
Many have lauded her in the days since her death.
Heather Robinson said her father, who died in 2014, learned to appreciate his wife’s passion for the arts. But it was Mara who voraciously drank in every performance — she loved the opera La Traviata — and almost any cause that would aid those efforts.
Heather Robinson said her mother kept her struggle with Alzheimer’s private for a long period of time.
“To the very end, she fought it,” she said. Robinson is survived by her three daughters: Heather Robinson, Lisa Robinson Spader and Wendy Robinson; sons-in-law Joseph McDermott and Matt Spader; and six grandchildren.