Mary Barstler Sorensen

Mary Barstler Sorensen died Saturday, February 11, 2023, at the Havenwood-Heritage Heights Health Services Center, an assisted-living facility at 33 Christian Avenue in Concord, NH. She was 95, and had lived a long and full life.

Born Mary Jane Barstler on March 3, 1927, in Lincoln, Nebraska, Mary was the only child of Arnold Barstler, a railway postal clerk, and Olive Pasco Barstler, a school teacher and president of the local Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Mary fell in love with Thomas C. Sorensen when she joined the debate team at Lincoln High School. They were married in 1948, and had three children: Ann, Alan, and Jens (Chris).

Mary’s parents had been the first in their families to leave farming for city life. She married into a prominent and politically connected family, left Nebraska, traveled widely, and at times resided on both American coasts and in two foreign countries. Yet she retained for her whole life many of the values and sensibilities of her Midwest/Great Depression upbringing.

Once, as a child visiting relatives in Peru, NE, Mary was taken to a barn and shown a litter of kittens. “This was the first time I had seen little kittens, and I was impressed,” she recalled years later. “I was surprised and almost disbelieving when I was told I could have one to take home. Still disbelieving, I asked which one.” Mary was told she could have whichever kitten she wanted.

“According to my moral values at the time, I should be modest, unobtrusive, unassuming, etc., shunning special attention and not be ambitious or greedy or whatever,” Mary wrote. “I should, of course, not take the best one. (I was unworthy.) However, there was only one really nice kitty, kind of a buff-pink color. All the others were scrawny and had ugly spots. Against all my best instincts, I said I wanted the buff-pink one, please.”

The kitten, newly named Muffin, was packed up and taken home, and Mary would eagerly run to find her on returning from school. A few days later, however, Muffin escaped and was run over by a car. “Now whose fault was this?,” Mary wrote. “Naturally, MINE. I should never have asked for the best one.”

As self-effacing as she was, Mary rarely seemed insecure in her opinions on the right and wrong ways to do things. She also showed impressive competence in jobs she undertook over the years. These jobs varied widely. She taught deaf children in Ogallala, NE, and juvenile offenders in Pleasanton, CA. She managed the office for the executive of a large suburban New York county, and for a Connecticut home for retired nuns. All of her jobs showed two abiding passions: figuring ways to make systems and organizations work better, and applying specialized teaching skills to help marginalized persons join the mainstream.

Mary wrote about watching her father wash dishes on a Saturday morning. “I was studying Home Economics at the time and knew he wasn’t doing it right. When I told him so, my mother angrily took me aside and told me that if that was the way he wanted to do them, that was just fine and I was not to interfere.” Later in life, employers paid her to suggest process improvements.

Most of Mary’s labors went unpaid, of course. She found them challenging and fulfilling too. Mary supported her husband as a foreign service spouse in Lebanon and Egypt. A devoted mother, she raised three children while moving to new places every few years. In retirement, she took her beloved grandkids—Laura, Lucy, Nell, and Sarah—on traveling adventures they remember still. And she volunteered enthusiastically—not to “stay active,” but to make a difference. She did hospice work. She also got training to teach English as a foreign language, which made a difference in the life of a woman named Sasha.

Sasha in the 1990s had fled with her family from war-ravaged Albania, and struggled to find work in America. She was close to despair when she finally secured a housecleaning job at the assisted-living facility where Mary spent her last years. On Sasha’s first day on the job, her very first task was to clean Mary’s residence. Sasha was warned, however: “You must vacuum under the bed, but don’t under any circumstances touch or move the slippers under the bed!”

Sasha nodded, then proceeded to both touch and move the slippers as she vacuumed under the bed. She did this, of course, because she didn’t comprehend English. Mary began to tell Sasha in no uncertain terms that she was not performing her job correctly—but quickly realized the problem. Mary would go on to help Sasha with her English and the practical sorts of things recent immigrants need to know. Today Sasha and her family are thriving U.S. citizens. She repaid Mary’s kindness many times over, becoming her best friend and helping her in countless ways as Mary’s health and cognition declined.

Mary Sorensen was a spiritual person. Raised in a Methodist household, she joined the Unitarian Church after marrying, and remained a Unitarian after her divorce in 1981. Yet she occasionally dabbled in prayer. In 2014, she wrote what she called “MY Prayer of Thanksgiving.” She was thankful, she said:

“For each of the many wonderful lives I’ve been given,

My three children and four grandchildren,

Many friends over the years,

And for the privilege of touching at least a few lives.”