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.

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