X-Message-Number: 13491 Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2000 15:54:19 -0700 From: Mike Perry <> Subject: Mae Ettinger Tributes and comments on Mae have continued since her suspension was announced. Here is a short article I recently ran in my newsletter *The Venturist* (1st Qtr 2000 issue), which has only a small circulation and will not have been seen by most people here. MAE ETTINGER SUSPENDED by Mike Perry The wife of cryonics founder Robert Ettinger and a longtime cryonics activist herself, Mae fell victim to a heart attack and stroke Mar. 18 and was promptly frozen by Cryonics Institute. She will be missed by those of us like myself who remember the Ettingers' warm hospitality over the years, as well as for the direct contributions she made to cryonics. Some information on her long and productive career comes from an interview of Nov. 27, 1987, when she was Mae Junod (*Venturist Voice* Fall 1987). Other information comes from scattered sources, including CryoNet, old newsletters (especially *The Immortalist*) and personal knowledge. Born June 18, 1914 in Michigan, she lived in that state until moving to California at age 14, staying long enough there to reach adulthood and attend college for one year. She then returned to Michigan where she got married and raised her children, two daughters. Early occupations involved office work, including operating a comptometer -a calculator and forerunner of the computer. When her children got older she returned to school and earned two master's degrees, the first in English liberal arts, the second in library science, and worked as a librarian and a teacher. Then, retiring from teaching but finding life boring, she obtained a third master's degree, this time in counseling, and received a limited license as a psychologist. All her degrees were from Wayne State University in Highland Park, Michigan, where one of her instructors was Robert Ettinger. Bob's field was physical science and, she recalled, when she first returned to school after raising her family, around 1960 or '61, Bob taught the first class of the day on her schedule. Besides teaching and the more usual preoccupa-tions he had another, very passionate interest, involving the idea of freezing the newly deceased for a hopeful, eventual reanimation: what would later become known as cryonics. At some point he communicated the idea; in the interview she said, "I think there was a fair, automobile show, or something like that, and he had a booth there, on cryonics. I helped in the booth and my daughters helped." This was before *The Prospect of Immortality*, Bob's famous book on the freezing idea, was completed. But as that time drew near, Mae found herself strapped for cash, "and he paid me to type his manuscript for him." On Jun. 5, 1964 The Prospect of Immortality was published by Doubleday, and the freezing idea soon had gained wide exposure. Mae remained in Michigan and became a workhorse for the cryonics movement there. The Cryonics Society of Michigan (CSM), started in the mid-1960s, was patterned after the Cryonics Society of New York headed by Curtis Henderson, the first organization to publicly offer cryonic suspension. CSM eventually developed into Cryonics Institute (CI), which handles actual cryonic suspensions for members worldwide, and the Immortalist Society (IS, formerly Cryonics Association or CA) a sister organization involved in promotional work, including publishing a newsletter. For a quarter-century with a few brief intermissions Mae edited this newsletter, which has been published under three titles during its long and eventful history. Starting in Jan. 1970 as *Cryonics Society of Michigan Newsletter* the title of the then-monthly publication was changed to *The Outlook *after only one more issue. There it remained until the present title, *The Immortalist*, was adopted in Mar. 1976. *The Immortalist* remained a monthly until finally going bimonthly with the May/June 1996 issue. Mae finally retired as editor (and more generally) at the end of 1996, at the age of 82. Her long editorial tenure is surely unique in the cryonics field (or perhaps is matched only by the considerable efforts over the years of her husband, whose writing is found throughout the newsletter). It is all the more remarkable because, as far as I know, it was all volunteer work, done not at all for salary but only from pure motives of dedication to a cause. Bob and Mae were married in August 1988, following the suspension, the preceding November, of Elaine, Bob's wife of many years. They lived in Oak Park, Michigan until moving to Scottsdale, Arizona in October 1995. On the occasion of her retirement from editing in December 1996 Mae offered some remarks that seem appropriate now. "In closing I want to thank the many contributors to the pages of *The Immortalist*, and too the loyal members of IS who have expressed so much appreciation to Robert and me for our efforts. We are still with you in spirit." Robert (Bob), now 81, continues his active work in cryonics, including contributing to *The Immortalist*. In announcing the suspension over CryoNet recently he said, "She was a good woman, a good wife, and a good friend. I miss her terribly, but retain hope for all our present and future patients." He also extends thanks "to the kind friends who have given their support and their condolences." *Credit*: quote from Mae on retirement is from *The Immortalist* Nov.-Dec. 1996 p. 2. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=13491