Mary Jean Cronon

Mary Jean Cronon—known always to her family and friends as “Jean” or “Jeannie”—passed away in Falmouth, Massachusetts at the age of 100 on January 12.

Jean was the daughter of John and Lillian (Fox) Hotmar, and was born behind the hardware store they owned and operated for many years in the small Central Wisconsin town of Princeton. She grew up there and was a proud graduate of Princeton High School. Summers were spent with her sister Wanda and friends in the small cottage her parents built by hand on Green Lake, a place that served her as a beloved retreat for more than eighty years.

Beginning her studies at the University of Wisconsin in the middle of World War II, she trained as a nurse and worked for a year at New York Hospital before returning to Madison to earn her RN and BS degrees. She became active in Pres House, and there, in the fall of 1948, she met her future husband, Dave Cronon. She had real trouble making up her mind when he asked her to marry him, and only when he told her that he would be spending a year at the University of Manchester in England on a Fulbright Fellowship (and would leave her behind if she chose not to come with him) did she agree (albeit with hesitation—decisions were never easy for her!) to elope in May 1950.

Their honeymoon year in England changed both of their lives forever. When Dave wasn’t doing research in the archives, they bicycled, hitchhiked, and youth hosteled all over Europe with other Fulbright students. For this small-town midwestern girl, these early travels became a defining feature of their marriage, which ultimately carried the two of them all over the world.

Back in the States, Jean worked as a nurse while Dave finished his PhD in American history. Shifting jobs repeatedly in the 1950s to accommodate the family’s major moves and life events, she held several significant nursing positions during that decade. Prior to their year in England, she worked at Gallinger Municipal Hospital in Washington, DC. After returning to Madison, she served for two years as head nurse of the surgical ward in the Veteran’s Hospital, where she was proud to have played an instrumental role in encouraging that institution to abandon its past practice of racially segregating shared rooms.

When Dave accepted his first academic position at Yale University, Jean accompanied him to New Haven, which among other things began a family love affair with pizza that has persisted to this day. She served as an instructor in Nursing Arts at the Yale School of Nursing during her first year there, only giving up that position after becoming pregnant with her first child. Both of their sons were born in New Haven: Bill in 1954 and Bob in 1956. Jean worked part-time as a general duty nurse at St. Raphael’s Hospital in New Haven from 1954-1959—made possible because she helped found and coordinate a childcare cooperative with other working parents in her neighborhood. She also helped organize a cooperative nursery school at about the same time.

After residing briefly in Washington, DC, and Lincoln, Nebraska, the family moved back to Madison in 1962, where they purchased a modest house on Varsity Hill that would be their home for the next four decades. Dave began work at UW as a full professor in the History Department, serving as chair of the department during the tumultuous Vietnam years and then Dean of the College of Letters & Science. While their sons were growing up, Jean embraced wholeheartedly the role of stay-at-home mother and homemaker, not returning to part-time nursing work until her children reached high school. In addition to parenting, she played a very active role in helping her husband move up the academic career ladder. She served as his most trusted confidant and advisor; worked as a research assistant; helped index books; and hosted an enormous number of social gatherings for colleagues, friends, and graduate students. She was reliably the life of any party she attended, helping her more introverted husband relax and become comfortable in such settings.

Because the two complemented each other in so many ways, their marriage proved to be an ideal partnership for both. They fed their mutual love of travel by taking their sons on road trips to camp, hike, and backpack all over the US and Canada. Once the boys were older, Jean and Dave ventured farther afield to England, Switzerland, Greece, Mexico, South America, China, Australia, and many other places, including an especially memorable four months in 1973 when Jean, Dave, and Bob lived together in Russia while Dave served as a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Moscow.

In Madison, they gathered ever-growing circles of friends who often clustered around a shared love of games and other activities: cross-country skiing, playing bridge, discussing books, and spending time together at their beloved Green Lake cottage, where they hosted many memorable reunions. They had a remarkable gift for making new friends while never forgetting old ones: among their closest friends were the neighbors on Varsity Hill with whom they raised children in the 1960s, and Jean’s old classmates from Princeton. The hundreds of Christmas cards and family letters they unfailingly mailed every year starting in 1950 were one of the many ways they kept in touch—a tradition they continued for more than 60 years.

In the early 2000s, Dave’s health began to fail as his life-long asthma laid siege to his overworked heart. He tried with growing persistence to persuade Jean that they should move to the Oakwood Village retirement community to escape the burdens of maintaining a house. Although initially she was reluctant, she finally agreed...but tragedy struck on December 6, 2006, when he died unexpectedly on the very day they were moving into their new apartment.

Dave had been the love of her life, and losing him was a huge blow. But her friendships and joie de vivre never failed her. She threw herself into Oakwood activities; remained active with the Unitarian Church; regularly volunteered; walked 5-8 miles every day; delighted in her sons, grandchildren, and other relatives; and continued to spend summers at her Green Lake cottage until driving became too difficult. When even her independent apartment in Oakwood became too much of a challenge in the midst of the COVID epidemic, she moved to Falmouth, Massachusetts in 2021 to live near her son Bob and his family. She died there after a brief illness on January 12, 2026.

She will be dearly missed, but it’s hard to imagine a life better lived over the arc of 100 years.

She is survived by her son Bill Cronon (Jennifer Dueck); granddaughter Hilary Fey Cronon Bobel (Matt Cronon Bobel) and great-grandchild Avery Cronon Bobel; grandson Jeremy Fey Cronon (Amy Lones); step grandson Noah Benjamin; by her son Bob Cronon and grandchildren Kristen Lee Cronon and Carly Jean Cronon (Zulqarnain Khan); by the nieces and nephews who played such important roles in her life: Cindy Gossage (Dave Gossage), Jim Fischer (Cathy Fischer); Alan Ball (Colleen Ball); Sarah Teslik; Larry Ball; Eric Ball (Candace Ball); Dave Thurber (Rujira Boonsaem); John Thurber (Connie Cloonan); Mark Thurber (Susan Galli); Erica Gehrig (Mark Gehrig)...and many other extended relatives with whom she kept in close touch.

A memorial service will be held in Madison in the Atrium Auditorium of First Unitarian Society, 900 University Bay Drive, at 2pm on Saturday, April 11, 2026. In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to Olbrich Gardens (https://www.olbrich.org) or UW-Madison's Lakeshore Nature Preserve, whose Picnic Point was among her all-time favorite places to walk and where she installed a memorial bench in Dave’s honor (https://lakeshorepreserve.wisc.edu/donate/).

Cress Center

6021 University Ave.

Madison, WI 53705

(608) 238-8406