Mary Hance Owen , died on April 18, 2010 while living at the Navesink Harbor in Red Bank, New Jersey. Mary was born in Long Branch, NJ on June 8, 1920. Mary attended Freehold High School and then went to Douglass College where she majored in journalism, graduating in 1941. She made many life-long friends in college, among them Bob Owen, an athlete, an engineering student at Rutgers and a good dancer. Mary happily married Bob (Robert I. Owen) in a military ceremony at Rutgers Chapel in August 1942. While Bob was an engineering officer in the Navy stationed in the south Pacific, Mary worked at Fort Monmouth as a training coordinator. When Bob came home from the war, he entered the Foreign Service (Department of State), and so Mary became a foreign service wife, traveling along with him, learning multiple languages herself, adapting to life in one foreign culture after another, and raising their family. Mary raised four children, each of whom was born in a different country. Jim, the eldest, was born in the Dominican Republic, Ellen was born in Germany, John was born in the States, and Jeff, the youngest, was born in Russia. Upon Bob's retirement in 1971, Bob and Mary moved to West Long Branch, NJ. They settled into an old Victorian farm where Mary's uncle, Owen Woolley, and her mother, May Hance, lived before their deaths. Ready to make her own mark on the world, Mary became deeply involved in the community, investing countless hours in her church, the First United Methodist Church in West Long Branch, and in service to environmental organizations and causes. Mary was a pioneer in promoting recycling in Monmouth County, and began the first recycling program in West Long Branch. After farming the land for a time, Bob joined in her conservation efforts. Mary developed close relationships with people in numerous environmental groups and got to know local and state politicians on a first name basis. Passionate about greenspaces and gardening, Mary and Bob obtained a conservation easement on the fields adjoining their farm house, and donated these 8 acres to the town of West Long Branch for use as community gardens. In their eighties, Mary and Bob moved to Navesink Harbor, in Red Bank, when the farm became too much for them to manage. Sadly, Bob died in 2003, after 51 years of marriage. On her own, Mary continued to support her favorite environmental and political causes to the extent she could and to keep in touch with her friends and family. Mary is survived by her children, Jim Owen of Belfast, Maine, Ellen McNaughton of Grand Rapids, Michigan, John Owen of St. Petersburg, Florida, and Jeff Owen of Marshall, North Carolina, seven grandchildren and two great grandchildren. Mary will always be remembered for her love and for the support she gave her children in foreign lands and here at home, and for her love of birds, animals, and for the beautiful, fragile environment we all share. For the past several years, every conversation, until the end, included details about the weather, the state of the Navesink River, what she had seen on the news about the environment, and what wildlife she had seen. Mary will be buried in a family plot at West Long Branch Cemetery,West Long Branch. There will be a celebration of her life on June 5th, 11:30 AM at Old First United Methodist Church, 197 Locust Avenue, West Long Branch. In her memory friends and family are encouraged to make donations to a local environmental organization of their choice or to Douglass College.