Marie Kelleher

Dear Colleagues,

It is with a very heavy heart that I write this email. As some of you may know, our colleague in the Department of History, Marie Kelleher, has been battling cancer for the past several weeks. On Saturday, Marie wrote about spending time catching up on The Mandalorian with her brother and finishing the final edits to Chapter 4 of her forthcoming monograph. While the long-term prognosis was not good and though, as Marie said in her typically understated fashion, she “was not feeling super,” we all expected to be able to visit with her soon. However, early Sunday morning matters took a sudden and dramatic turn. Marie’s brother was with her, and her father flew down from Portland on Sunday. Last night, Marie passed away.

On behalf of the Department of History, I want to express and share our profound sadness over Marie’s passing. An outstanding colleague and a reliable and loyal friend, Marie’s infectious spirit was integral to our department. Many of you in CLA had varying degrees of acquaintance with Marie, but, in a large college, it’s unlikely that most of you had the privilege of knowing and/or working with her. Fate is kind and fate is cruel; for those of us who knew her, fate brought Marie into our existence, but rapidly took her from our lives. Though we will all feel her physical absence, her kindness, positivity, quirkiness, irreverence, intelligence, goofiness, dedication, and even some of the maddening things, will remain a part of all of us.

Bon courage.

david

——-

David A. Shafer, J.D., Ph.D.,

Chair, Department of History,
Professor, Modern and Contemporary European History