Mary Galbraith Thomas Peterson passed away on March 29, 2014. She was two months shy of her 98 birthday.

            Mary was a loving mother, grandmother, artist, printer, printmaker, entrepreneur, freelance writer, poet, bookseller and admitted chocolate–la-holic.

            Artistic, creative, inquisitive, with wanderlust in her bones, she lived life on her terms, and shared her passions with the world.

            Mary spent most of her childhood in Toledo, Ohio.  She participated in girl scouting and also spent many a Saturday as an art student at the Toledo Art Museum.  

            She attended Long Beach Jr. College (City College) in CA, and graduated in 1938 from Pomona College in Claremont, CA, with a degree in Art and English. Upon graduation from college, she taught Art and English for a few years at Ramona Union High School, in San Diego, CA.
           During WWII, she served honorably in the U.S. Naval Reserve as an Ensign in the WAVES. She was a coding officer stationed in Washington DC. It was there where she met and married Major William W. W. Peterson, of the U.S. Army.
      After the war, they settled in Pacific Palisades, CA. where they had three children. Mary wrote features, and area book & news columns for the Santa Monica Evening Outlook, in Santa Monica, CA.
Upon the untimely death of her husband, Mary relocated her family to Escondido, CA. where she continued her freelance writing and photography.
Her passion for the written word found her as the owner and proprietor of a used and out of print bookstore in Escondido. Entrepreneurial in nature and in pre computer days, she created and produced, Bookseller West, a mail order out-of-print book and search service. Mary was active in the Escondido branch of the American Legion Post 149, as well as the ABWA (American Business Writers Association), Zonta International, and AAUW (American Association of University Women), San Diego Chapter.