Obituary

Frances Mabry LeCocq, age 90, passed away peacefully on September 6, 2017, surrounded by family at her home in Bellingham. She will always be remembered as a brilliant, gracious, and beautiful woman. Frances loved her family unconditionally, and will be greatly missed by her husband Irwin, daughter Janice, and son Charles, all of whom she gave the gift of learning through literature, music, and art.

Frances was born in Bellingham, WA on December 6, 1926, the daughter of Arthur Mabry. Arthur was a master mariner who sailed the world on passenger steam ships. Frances’ mother was Mabel Osgood, a school teacher at Roeder School.

Frances’ early childhood was spent on Eldridge Avenue in a large comfortable home overlooking Bellingham Bay. Her grandfather, George Osgood built the house with large windows that let the sunlight stream in. Frances often played in the park across the street. It still exists today – Carl Lobe Park.

In 1932, everything changed. The Great Depression caused the Mabrys to move to their farm on the Van Dyk Road in Lynden, WA out of economic necessity. There they started a new and much simpler life.

Frances attended Lynden High School. It was in Lynden that she met and fell in love with Irwin LeCocq.

By 1942, World War II was well underway. Like so many of the men in the Greatest Generation, Irwin enlisted and went to war in the South Pacific, leaving behind his love on her family’s farm. Frances wrote to Irwin each and every day he was away at war, giving him the single greatest gift she could during those difficult years. Her letters, although signed in the formal “Yours truly,” were filled with love and care. A love and care that sustained and nurtured Irwin while he was overseas, and continued through 70 years of marriage. Frances was the true iron hand in the silk glove: strong and enduring, compassionate and caring, loving and tender.

While Frances’ physical presence will be dearly missed, her spirit is with us as she continues to surround us with her love, her intensity of being, her understated elegance, and the light of her memory.

Memorial donations may be made to The Bellingham Festival of Music, http://bellinghamfestival.org, or to the Whatcom Symphony Orchestra, http://www.whatcomsymphony.com