Raised in Tribute:
$275.00
Marie Blanck Coogan, longtime Yonkers resident , died peacefully at her home surrounded by her loved ones at the Fountains at RiverVue in Tuckahoe, New York, on December 31, 2017. She was ninety-two years old. She suffered from Parkinson's later in life, so Marie's family is grateful for any donations to help advance research.
Wife of the late Fred Coogan, mother of three, and grandmother of five, Marie always found a way to improve the lives of those in her community. During her tenure as a floor supervisor at Andrus Retirement Community in Hastings-on-Hudson (now Andrus on Hudson), she worked to create a comfortable home for the residents. At St. John's Riverside Hospital in Yonkers, she delighted in assisting new families by volunteering in the nursery. As a volunteer at Sacred Heart, she founded and managed the Family Closet Thrift Shop, which provided a dignified and affordable place to shop in her community. She also served as a Eucharistic Minister and delivered the Eucharist to homebound fellow parishioners.
But her selfless spirit of service transcended these special institutions. Marie treasured her community and especially her family. She met her beloved husband Fred at Gorton High School in Yonkers from which they both graduated in the class of 1942. They started dating after the war while working at International Paper Company in New York City and were happily married for fifty-eight years until Fred's death in 2007.
Marie was a lifelong amateur photographer and an enthusiastic traveler. She and Fred loved their annual visits to the Greenbrier in West Virginia, and Marie was always eager to replicate some portion of its lovely gardens and decor in the family home. Once she and Fred discovered how much they enjoyed Europe, they always had a plan in the works for their next adventure.
For her husband, daughters, and grandchildren, she created a home filled with music, flowers, and laughter. We will always be inspired by her generosity of spirit, her good humor and humility, her boundless ability to forgive, and her unconditional love. And no tribute to her would be complete without acknowledging her enviable eye and sense of style.
Thank you for remembering Marie as we do: kind, lighthearted, and full of love.
The Michael J. Fox Foundation is dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson's disease and to ensuring the development of improved therapies for those living with Parkinson's today. The Foundation is the world's largest nonprofit funder of Parkinson's research, with more than $800 million in high-impact research funded to date.
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