Mary Geraldine (Alderson) Otley passed away peacefully Jan. 15 at her home in Diamond, due to an aftermath of health issues from a stroke and smaller mini strokes the preceding weeks. Her mind and memory remained healthy, and she was able to visit with family and friends to her last day.

Mary was born May 23, 1922, in Monmouth, to Evelyn Lightfoot Holmes and Richard Abraham Alderson. Mary graduated magna cum laude from the University of Oregon in 1943, and upon graduation, she joined the Navy, serving in the WAVES from 1944-1946. Mary then taught school at Salem High School for two years, followed by one year in Burns, in 1948.

After eloping, Mary married Harold Dorman Otley Sept. 3, 1949, at the courthouse in Klamath Falls. In the winter of 1951, they moved 10 miles up Steens Mountain to the Ham Brown Place, which was part of the Otley’s family ranch. For three years, they lived without electricity, and without neighbors, but they did have an excellent hand pump on an excellent shallow well, a wonderful stone chicken house, and an old barn for their horses and milk cows. Their oldest children, Harry and Sherry, were born while they lived at the Ham Brown Place. Taking care of leppy calves, milking a couple of cows, making cottage cheese and butter, and keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes was part of life in Cucamonga Valley.

In 1954, they built a house three miles closer to ranch headquarters where son, Fred, was born and electricity arrived, moving seven miles up the mountain. They even got a crank phone with ring sequences that worked part of the time. Both Brown Place homes in Cucamonga Valley had wonderful populations of rattlesnakes. Mary became a mowing machine operator during this time, cutting hay every year through the summer of 2017, when she was 96 years old.

In the fall of 1966, Mary returned to teaching PE and health at the Burns (Slater) Grade School and Lincoln Junior High School. It was during this time that she started coaching. She also began to run every day. Mary often began working on school lesson plans as early as 4 a.m. after which she would run four to eight miles, and then run with her classes later in the day. In 1969, she transferred to the Burns Union High School with many successful cross country, volleyball, basketball, and track teams and student-athletic achievements and championships. The volleyball, basketball, track, and cross country teams made many runs in state tournaments. In 1978, her volleyball team won the state championship, and she received the Oregon High School Athletics Association Coach of the Year award, and later, she was named the National Volleyball Coach of the Year.

Mary was a perfectionist and forever a teacher. When she became involved in something, she wanted to know everything about it. During her time at Lincoln Junior High and Burns Union High, women’s competitive athletics became on a par with the men’s programs. Volleyball was completely reformed in the first years of her coaching career. Mary purchased books to learn about power volleyball, and was very proud to have helped bring power volleyball to Eastern Oregon high schools, and that had some major challenges.

Many of her students and student athletes have gone on to successful careers of many kinds, including some in higher levels of athletics and coaching. She loved and was very proud of all of her students and young people working to be successful in life, academics, and sports during and after she retired from teaching in 1982. After retiring, she continued to attend many local high school ball games and track meets for many years, particularly the last 20 years. She attended a Crane basketball game the last week of her life. Mary had the unique ability to develop personal relationships with young athletes. She was so very proud of the many young students for whom they were as individuals, for their personal efforts and successes, and for them letting her be a part of their efforts.

Mary began to run marathons when she was in her 50s because several of her runners wanted to and they wanted her to be there, and of course, she was there and she also ran the marathon. She was dedicated to her training and was often seen running around Diamond Valley in the early morning hours before working in the hay field all day.  Mary completed two marathons before she stopped running at the age of 62 or so, when a genetic hip problem got so painful that she had to have hip-replacement surgery.

During summers when not teaching, and full time after retiring from teaching, she was actively involved in the family ranch operations. She cut, raked, and bucked hay for years when the ranch put up loose hay. Her main job in the hay field was cutting hay, moving from a tractor mower, to old swathers that plugged in heavy hay every 100 feet, to modern swathers with cabs that could almost cut anything with few problems. At 96 years of age, she was still cutting hay full time in her “recreational vehicle” (her John Deere swather). If she broke down, her husband, Harold, who was an excellent mechanic and inventor of many devices, would find a way to get her back in the field.

She also fed loose hay with a pitch fork off a wagon for many years. When the ranch switched to round bales, she would feed most of the ranch’s cattle with a tractor-pulled feeder into her 96th  year. A few years prior, in her 80s, she was a master barbed wire gate builder. Harold’s inventions helped them work together on many projects for many years and do many jobs difficult for younger people. Harold and Mary were married for 61 years; he passed away in February 2010.

Keeping with her need to know all she could about the cattle industry, Mary expanded her knowledge of cattle breeding and bull selection. She was well known by cattle industry leaders in the use and importance of expected progeny differences (EPDs) in cattle breeding and bull selection. For 35 years, she spent hours evaluating performance data to help their family ranch select bulls to improve their herd of red angus and sim-angus cattle for their ranch’s needs in the future. One of her favorite events was her annual trips with Harold, Jim and Mary Sue Davis, the Drewsey Bunch, son, Harry, daughter, Sherry, and many other friends. Their trips went to Pendleton, Montana, Kansas, Colorado, and other places. She was all business during the selection and purchase of bulls, and she was often the life of the party after the auctions were completed.

The success of friends, family, young people, the ranch, the cattle industry, and of the community and country was always first and foremost in her values. She had her own quick-witted way to tease and give someone a bad time. Many friends became extended family. She loved a good drink of scotch with three ice cubes or a Corona light beer with friends. Her Bible was always close by, and God was strong in her beliefs.

Mary is survived by three children, Harry Otley and his wife, Mary, Sherry Stott and her husband, Doug, Fred and his wife, Debbi; eight grandchildren; and 15 great-grandchildren. There are many, many friends who she considered family.

She was preceded in death by her brother, William Alderson, in 2007; and sister, Betty Cuthburt, in 2017.

A funeral service was held Jan. 24 at the Harney County Fairgrounds Memorial Building.