Mary Ellen Bogin died on April 20, 2025. She was 77 years old. She is remembered by friends and family for her warmth and empathy and her playful sense of humor as well as her incisive intellect. Mary had a friendly open manor and an engaging smile and she enjoyed long conversations punctuated with laughter. She was a devoted mother and wife as well as having had two professional careers.
Mary was born and grew up in Michigan farm country about an hour North of Detroit. She received a B.A. degree from Antioch College in Ohio and then went on to get a master's degree in journalism from Michigan State. Her journalism career took her to the Daily News in Newburyport, Massachusetts and then the News Bureau at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. In 1975 she came to Geneva as the Director of the News Bureau for Hobart and William Smith Colleges. After two years she moved on to news writing at Cornell, and while working there she was able to take courses for free. She took courses in American history, women's history and the history of science and she decided to get a master's in history. Her favorite professor suggested that she should study full time, get a doctorate, become a teaching assistant and she wouldn't have to pay. Mary's Ph.D. is in the history of science, and she had two children along the way to getting it. For twenty two years, she was a professor at Onondaga Community College where she taught American history and women's history.
Politics was not a career but a long term interest for Mary. She read four newspapers and was a politically active citizen. When Geneva was threatened with the construction of a garbage incinerator upwind in Flint, Mary brought together a group to found Citizens for Responsible Waste Management which she co-directed in a successful two year campaign to stop the construction and preserve our air quality. She went on to represent Geneva on the Ontario County Planning Board for twenty years.
Mary loved the outdoors, kayaking on Seneca Lake, hiking in the Adirondacks, and most of all bicycling on the country roads south of Geneva. She bicycled for hours sometimes to Penn Yan, on occasion to Canandaigua, and she knew where all the dogs lived on her favorite routes. She loved animals, always stopping to listen when she heard frogs or birds singing, and she loved dogs and cats. Over the years, she had many. She was also dedicated to song birds providing a reliable sunflower supply for them throughout the year.
After retiring, Mary went on long bike rides and spent hours gardening. Over time, trees and bushes grew up limiting sunlight in the yard, but Mary always managed to find places for new flowers and bulbs every year.
There is a photograph of Mary that captures something essential. In the photograph Mary is a small figure in a wide expanse of blue water up to her chest. She is looking up at the photographer, her arms raised and open wide, a big smile of delight on her face.
Mary is survived by her husband Michael Bogin; her sons Theodore Bogin and Alexander Bogin; and daughter-in-law Reema Bogin; her sisters-in-law Cate Burke, and Carla Simpson; and her husband David Simpson; and nieces Sydney Simpson, and Amanda McBride; and her husband Patrick McBride; and their daughters Emma and Katie McBride. Mary was pre-deceased by her brother James Morrice.
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