Marion Katherine Seel Hackley was born on July 20,1926, in Mineola on Long Island, New York, to Louis Seel and Emma Ida (Schultz) Seel, immigrants from Germany.
Her first language was German. In the public schools, she learned to speak, read, and write English. Her father was a manager of A and P grocery stores, and in the 1930’s he moved the family to Tunbridge, Vermont, to run a small grocery store. Marion walked a mile to a two-room schoolhouse.
She remembered her mother becoming a U. S. citizen, wearing a dress she had sewn of red, white, and blue. The family regarded themselves as Americans with a German background.
They returned to Long Island, and Marion graduated from Glen Cove High School in 1943. She attended Cornell University on a scholarship, graduating in 1946 with a degree in Home Economics. Her mother wanted her to have a practical college education so, she could support herself. She went to work for Doubleday and Company, a publisher just outside New York City, and a co-worker introduced her to George Hackley, an electrical engineer working in radar. They were married at the Episcopal Church of the Advent, Westbury, New York, on June 6, 1948.
Soon after, he was offered a job in Redwood City, California to work for Varian Associates, one of the first electronic firms in what has become Silicon Valley.
Marion’s memorial service will be held Saturday, Feb. 10, 11:00 a.m. at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church with Rev. Alan Gibson officiating.
For the full obituary, please click here.
