Mary Weed-Pickens
Mary not only wrote about surviving cancer, but also about politics and expatriate life in Geneva. She promoted bi-lingualism through children’s poetry. Her legacy will be felt both in the plays and books and articles she wrote, edited or published – even while in hospital this last year – but perhaps more importantly, through the friends she made and the friends she brought together.
Mary Weed was born in Washington DC on March 4, 1955. She spent her early childhood in Germany, where her father, an Air Force Colonel, was stationed. When her father retired, she moved with the family to a home in Fremont, California, where she grew up among apricot, lemon and eucalyptus trees, Catholic schools, church, nuns at St. Joseph’s school who nurtured her mind and her musical talent. Her family lived across from one of the old Spanish missions; two convents were within a few minutes walk. She thought she would become a nun.
After a Catholic high school, she went away to the University of California, studying at Davis and Berkeley. Her love of the French language took her first to Grenoble for a year abroad and then to Paris for graduate work, where she earned two masters and a doctorate in International Relations from one of France’s most august schools, the Insititut d’Etudes Politiques, (IEP) in Paris. Her thesis, about French foreign policy in the 1970s, was reviewed in Le Monde and Foreign Affairs, among others.
Mary liked to try her hand at interesting jobs. She organized a conference of Nobel Prize winners in Paris, becoming friends in the process with the likes of William Golding and Milton Friedman. Having tea with the intellectual giants of our time was normal for her.
She was good friends with members of Morocco’s royal family. She worked with Dan Rather at CBS News in New York. She served in the French Foreign Ministry of Michel Jobert – the eventual subject of her Phd thesis. She worked in Egypt at the French embassy and learned Arabic. She then was offered a job as speechwriter to the head of IBM Europe. Later she came to Geneva to work for Hewlett-Packard. In the last 10 years, she taught negotiation and communications at Ifrane University in Morocco.
She was considering taking another interesting job – as speechwriter to the President of the Maldives – when she fell into a fountain in New York and gashed her head. She met her husband in the apartment where she was recovering. Despite the stitched up scar across her forehead, her future husband was immediately intrigued by this beautiful, bright, delightful woman.
She was a tigress when her children were born -- Andrew and Samy – taking them from the nurses as if they were cubs needing defending. She cherished them. She fought through this last year to be with them for a little longer. She was constantly working to open up possibilities for her children, whether it was a chance to travel to Taiwan on a Rotary exchange or through support for their poetry and music. She gave them their music talent. She was an accomplished pianist herself. She was a cheerleader in their lives, so proud of her boys. She gave to them her best qualities – her drive, her sunny Californian belief in limitless possibilities, her belief in the equality of the worth of every individual, and the importance of friendship – even with the person waiting in line at the bank. In her world view, everyone put their pants on the same way, one leg at a time, and everyone could be a friend.
She was always for the underdog – part of her Irish side. She was ready to confront the powers that be if they were wrong whatever size they were. By challenging the logic of certain insurance policies regarding bone marrow transplantation – from her hospital bed -- she spurred a review of standing policy. That was typical of her.
She was a proud member of the Paysannes Vaudoises and the Samaritans. She made a home in Luins and got to know everyone there. A few days before she was diagnosed with leukemia, she was doing aerobics with the ladies of the village. Her French became more Vaudoise as time went by. She would say, “I am from Luins now”.
But she was from everywhere. She called herself a “Frenchified Irish Californian Suissesse”. The family has received condolences from Paris to Buenes Aires, from New York to Singapore.
She loved to travel. One of the restrictions brought on by cancer was the inability to travel. She talked about travelling when she was well. But she also told everyone she knew that it was important to get a blood test, catch the cancer early. She wanted to bring attention to it, raise money for cancer research, and hoped to create a foundation that would help patients and their families.
She is travelling where she wants now, unbound by the flesh, whole, healthy, with that bright, warm smile.
