On August 19, 2003 Mary Dean Miller died peacefully in her Saratoga home at the age of 67. Born in Grand Island, Nebraska, the older child in a preacher’s family (Rev. Lowell A. MacFarlane), she grew up in Bedford, OH. She attended Hiram College of Hiram OH, where she majored in Biology and earned a Bachelor of Arts with Honors. She then went to graduate school at the University of Rochester in New York in the Department of Pharmacology. At the end of that school year she married G. Kirby Miller II who was a graduate student at Harvard. She then transferred to Harvard and earned a Masters Degree in Pharmacology before moving to Austin, TX where their first child was born. They moved to the South Bay area of California in 1967 and have lived there ever since.
After her three children were all in school she began to work part time at Stanford as a Research Assistant and then at the VA Hospital in Palo Alto. She worked ten years as a researcher at Syntex in Palo Alto before retiring in 1995. At this point she began her second educational period taking courses in various kinds of therapeutic massage and a four-year course in Healing Energetics at the Barbara Brennan School of Healing Science that gave her the tools to start her own business, Hands on Care. She received additional training in the healing arts from a one-year course called Plant-Spirit Medicine, became a practitioner at the Center for Integrative Medicine in San Jose, CA, and during her last year was a massage intern at the California Pacific Medical Center’s Institute for Health and Healing learning to use touch therapy in a hospital setting.
In addition to her home-centered activities of organic gardening, baking, cooking, sewing, and knitting at which she excelled, she also was active in the church, 4-H, and various social justice causes. She taught Sunday School when her children were young, and sang in the choir, was vice-moderator and moderator at First Christian Church in San Jose. She was also in charge of that church’s homeless feeding program and was active in PFLAG for many years. She marched in many parades for the homeless as well as for Gay Pride.
In spite of all of her outside activities, the health and well being of her family were always her highest priorities. She made certain that her home was available and welcoming for family get-togethers of all kinds and sizes. A gentle and caring person with a self-imposed mission to helping others, she was a friend to everyone who met her and will be sorely missed.
She is survived by husband Kirby, sons Gerald and Michael, daughter Alice, grandson Cyrus, brother Robert MacFarlane, and many first cousins, nieces and nephews. She is also survived by other members of Kirby’s greater family, including his siblings, with whom she was very close.
There will be a memorial service and reception for Mary Dean on Thursday September 4th at 1 PM in the First Christian Church of San Jose (80 S. Fifth St., access from San Fernando only)
Those who wish may send donations to Mary Dean Fund c/o First Christian Church, 80 S. Fifth St., San Jose, CA 95112. The fund will go to her favorite charities. Click here to go back to the pictures of my mom
