— from Jan Koltun —

Mary HattenMary Gibson Hatten, 88, died Dec.20, 2013 in Whatcom Hospice. A committal service will be held in late spring.

Born March 24, 1925 to Ed and Edna Gibson of Eastsound, she was graduated from Orcas Island High School in 1943 (see photo), in a ceremony in the old Odd Fellows Hall. She served in the Waves during World War II. She attended Northwestern University in Chicago and became a legal secretary for many years in Seattle.

Active in the civil rights movements of the 1960s, she provided clerical help for the March on Selma, with some threat to personal safety.

She married the late Barry Hatten, a labor attorney, and moved back to Orcas with him in 1987 to help manage North Beach Inn, her family’s business.

She leaves three nephews, Roger and Craig Gibson and Charles Seagrave, and a niece, JeanClare Rahe.

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