Mary A. Fisher

Mary Agnes Fisher passed away at Hiland House hospice in Petoskey, Mich. on Monday, August 31, 2015. She lived independently in her Petoskey condo until she was hospitalized 11 days before her death. Family and friends celebrated her 100th birthday at a luncheon at the Bay View Inn on her birthday, which was a great delight for her. She was thrilled when her 100th birthday picture appeared on the front page of the Petoskey News-Review.

She was born in Whitesands, Saskatchewan, Canada on June 17, 1915, to Michael and Katryna Trish, who had immigrated there from Galacia, Austria in 1907 for the promise of land to farm. She was the seventh of eight children. Her mother died when Mary was two and, with so many young children and with only a subsistence-level farm, her father placed the four youngest children in the Catholic orphanage in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. One brother was immediately adopted. Mary was sent to several foster homes (i.e., farm families where she was expected to work for her keep), but never formally adopted and remained in the Canadian Child Welfare System until she was 18.

Mary then worked in and around Regina and Saskatoon for a few years, primarily clerking in department stores. She saved enough for train fare, about $30, and traveled alone across Canada to Windsor, Ontario. There she met her future husband, William Fisher of Detroit, who was visiting with mutual friends in Windsor. They were married in September, 1940. They lived in Detroit for a short time before relocating to Lake Orion, Mich. where they raised their family.

In 1983, Mary was taken on a trip to Guatemala by one of her daughters to visit her daughter's friend who lived in Antigua, Guatemala. Mary was a bit apprehensive about the flight from New Orleans to Guatemala City in a somewhat rickety plane of the Guatemalan national airline, so once aloft her daughter ordered a rum-and-coke for her. It tasted so good, Mary asked for a second one. Mary, not being used to alcohol, had a very happy flight.

As an adult, Mary was reunited with several of her siblings, but because of the distances involved, saw one or another of them only rarely. In 1974, she traveled to Saskatchewan with her two daughters to meet her oldest brother. Shortly before that trip, she learned that the brother who had been adopted from the orphanage had been found and she was also able to meet him for the first time.

Although her education was sporadic and limited, Mary was an avid reader of non-fiction, loved classical music, and was a stickler for proper grammar. She eschewed television in favor of National Public Radio programming, and followed national politics closely.

Mary and her husband bought a cabin in 1972 in Ontario, on a large lake in a very remote area, inhabited primarily by Cree tribal members. The cabin had no electricity or indoor plumbing and was accessible only by water. Cooking, primarily fish caught that morning, was done on an old wood-fired stove, and water was carried from the lake to the cabin in buckets for washing and drinking. They would spend their summers there, which Mary continued to do after her husband's death in 1982. She spent every summer there alone until she was 83. After that, she would be taken there with one or another of her children for short stays. She often said that those summers at the cabin were the best times of her life.

She is survived by daughters Kathleen Fisher (Donald) and Mary Ready, sons William, Jr. (Marcy) and Michael, and granddaughters Christine and Nicole.

The family has decided that because the birthday luncheon in June gave her family and friends warm memories of her to remember there will be no local memorial service. In accordance with Mary's wishes, her ashes will be taken to her beloved cabin in Canada for a private family service.

Personal messages and condolences may be left at www.gaylordfuneralhome.com