Mary Catherine Bertram Sorenson
May 3, 1922 - November 22, 2015
Obituary
Mary Catherine Bertram Sorenson
Mary Catherine Bertram Sorenson was born on May 3, 1922 in Columbia, South Carolina. Mary was the youngest child of Ella Barbara Shuler and George William Bertram. She had three brothers and one sister. The family relocated to Columbus, Georgia when Mary was a child. Her father was a sheet metal worker and her mother was a homemaker who also took in boarders and sewing to help the family coffers.
Mary graduated from Jordan High School and was the first in her family to reach this milestone. After school, she went to work at S. H. Kress as a sales clerk and later on a bookkeeper. She was active with the USO during World War II as a hostess. Mary met her future husband, James Charles Sorenson, on a blind date arranged by a friend also working at the USO. He was stationed at Fort Benning in Georgia.
Jim and Mary were married on January 15, 1946 in Columbus, Georgia. They headed west to Logan, Utah where Jim finished college and they had their first child, Susan. Over the next ten years the family grew with the addition of sons, Mark, Paul and Lee. The family moved with Jim’s employment from Ogden, Utah to Mobile, Alabama to Middletown, Ohio to Seattle, Washington to New Orleans, Louisiana and finally back to Seattle.
Mary returned to work in Seattle after her youngest child entered high school. She loved her job working in a fabric store. She also worked as a bookkeeper at a printing company from which she retired. After her retirement, she remained an active volunteer working at Auburn General Hospital.
Mary became a widow when her beloved husband, Jim, passed away in 1997. She retained her love of doing Sudoku puzzles, eating shrimp and Snickers bars until her death on November 22, 2015.
To know Mary was to love her. She was gracious, kind and caring.