Mary Frances Painter
March 15, 1945 - April 25, 2022
Obituary
Mary Frances passed away on April 25, 2022, at the age of 77, at St. Francis Hospital in Federal Way, WA.
She was the first born of John H. Painter and Frances M. Painter, born in St. Louis, Missouri. Mary Frances called herself an Army brat, and she lived in places all over the world during her childhood and early adult years: India, England, and Japan, just to name a few. She had wonderful memories of riding her bike along out-of-the way roads in India and taking a quick helicopter jaunt from Japan to Thailand just for the fun of it on a day off.
Mary Frances put herself through college with a ROTC scholarship at a time when less than 10% of U.S. women earned college degrees. And, while she was in the process of earning her bachelor’s degree, she was also running a ward in a local hospital as a registered nurse to help pay for school, in the days when a college degree wasn’t required to be an RN.
After graduating from the University of Texas, Mary Frances, or “Muff” as her friends coined her one night when they may or may not have had a drink or two, was commissioned into the Army Corp of Nurses and stationed at Camp Oji in Tokyo, Japan where she met her future husband and father of her daughter, Cecil Hooper, and occasionally took illicit helicopter rides with friends.
Muff was a RN for nearly her entire adult life and was that rarest of people who didn’t have a single mean bone in her body. She was an incredibly loyal, loving mother and sister and caregiver who was always the one person you could count on to show up, even when no one else did. Her stubborn spirit sometimes got her into unanticipated trouble, but with a backbone of steel, she always came out the other side stronger. In the end, it wasn’t her will that failed, but time that finally collected its due.
She will be missed.
Mary Frances is survived by her daughter Shannon Hooper, and siblings Corinne and Sean Garrett, Michele Painter and Ken Hendricks, Beth and Tom Shumate, Lorrie and Sean Fleenor, and John Painter, and many cherished cousins. She was predeceased by her parents John and Frances Painter, and siblings Mavis Painter, Gerry John Painter, and Loretta Painter.
