Mary Lee Matteson

Mary Lee (Mame) Matteson passed away peacefully April 4, 2025 at the age of 83. The second of six children of Royal and Mary Martin of Seattle, she attended Assumption School and Bishop Blanchet High School. At the University of Washington she met her husband Michael at a picnic at the Newman Catholic Student Center. After they were married, they moved to Gottingen Germany for Mike’s Ph.D studies at the Max Planck Institute. In Germany they had their sons Mark and Marty. Mame loved traveling around Europe and making friends from all over the world. She also mastered cooking German dishes and her children would forever beg her to make wiener schnitzel, rouladen, and bauernfruhstuck. Eventually Mame and Mike settled in Atlanta where their daughter Sarah was born. Mame was very active in their parish at St. Thomas More, where she answered the rectory phone on Wednesdays, brought kids from the Davison School to Mass on Sundays, served on the Parish Council, and was often serving coffee and doughnuts between Masses. She worked as a bookkeeper for Callanwolde Fine Arts Center as well as for Kinko’s Copy Center. She loved to see people coming together to help others in their community, and in her position with the Decatur Cooperative Ministry she helped oversee transitional housing, a food bank, a clothing bank, a shelter for women and children, among many other service projects for this interfaith coalition. Mame and Mike retired to Washington in 2000. They were blessed to have five wonderful granddaughters. Zoe and Ana spent every Monday with her when they were little, and Mame loved organizing activities like going to the Thurston County Fair, watching the salmon run in the fall, and countless trips to the Hands On Children’s Museum in Olympia.

She was preceded in death by her mother and father and by her sisters Judy Robinson and Patricia Kulgren. She is survived by her brothers Rob Martin (Lynn) and Michael Martin (Riley), her sister Molly Martin, her children Mark (Evy Kontos), Marty, and Sarah (Brian Kranick), and her grandchildren Zoe and Ana Matteson, and Maggie, Josie and Caroline Kranick.

A Memorial Mass will be celebrated on Friday May 2 at 11:00 am at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Tacoma. Memorial contributions may be made to the L’Arche Tahoma Hope Community.