2C.  Mary Ellen Gilbert was born in Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo County, Michigan, on Tuesday, October 19, 1943, and died in Homestead, Florida, on November 11, 1988. She died of breast cancer. John Michael Puckett was born in Youngstown(?), Ohio, on Wednesday, July 19, 1944. They were married in Havre de Grace, Maryland, on Saturday, January 30, 1965. She took the name Mary Ellen Puckett. They were divorced in 1979. She is the daughter of Truman Judson Gilbert and Dorothy Galbreath Gilbert. He is the son of Paul Albert and Maxine (Beard) Puckett. These were his adoptive parents. They had one child:

Mary Ellen Gilbert 198?

Mary Ellen was the middle child of her parents' five children: the lone girl between two pairs of brothers. Her name was selected in part because it did not have a ready nickname; her mother wanted her called "Mary Ellen" and she always was. Mary Ellen attended Milwood Elementary School and Junior High School which went through the ninth grade. Her first two years of high school were at Kalamazoo Central High School which her mother and older brothers had attended. Her last year of high school was in the first class to attend and graduate from the new Loy Norrix High School. She was assistant editor of her junior high school year book. Her major areas of high school study were English, history, and mathematics. Although she considered science a difficult subject, her favorite class was seventh- and eighth-grade science, and her concentration on mathematics was with great difficulty because she felt it was expected of her.

Mary Ellen was in her second year at Western Michigan University when President Kennedy was assassinated on November 23, 1963. That event had a great impact on her, causing an immediate reassessment of her goals and ambitions. Her college major was Education but she realized she was not interested in teaching; she did not return to classes.

Mary Ellen Gilbert 1964 Navy Photo

Mary Ellen Gilbert

In March of 1964, Mary Ellen enlisted the Navy as a Wave. She was sent to Bainbridge, Maryland, for her basic training, about an hour's drive from Rockville where her brother, Walter, lived. She spent most of her two years in the Navy in Bainbridge, graduating at the head of her class in machine accounting. At that time, machine accounting relied on the key punch and data processing cards for data entry, and wired plug-board tabulating machines for processing. Having never had a sister or really close relationship with a brother, Mary Ellen very much enjoyed living with other girls: "There was always someone to do something with." For her Company song, she adopted Western Michigan's fight song, which was written by Walter, and set new words to it. It was very popular with her classmates.

Mike Puckett spend most of his youth in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with his adoptive parents. Is it reported that the Puckett side of the family is related to Secretary of State Seward who arranged for the purchase of Alaska from Russia. Mike was an National Merit Scholar finalist. He had a dog named Joe that he found as a puppy in a snow bank while delivering newspapers in about 1955. Joe liked to eat chili peppers from plants in the family's front yard.

Mary Ellen met Mike on December 12, 1964, at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer) Club. They were married six weeks later. She made her street length, white satin wedding dress. The day of the wedding was so cold that her mother, and brothers, Walter and Harry, and Walter's wife, Sandra, had difficulty driving from Rockville to Bainbridge because Walter's Volkswagen had no heat and the windows had to be scraped constantly to remove the frost. A few months after they were married, Mike was sent to Massachusetts for six months. She would take the Greyhound bus every weekend to visit him, sometimes standing most of the way to New York City in the crowd of other service men and women on weekend passes. Then he was transferred to Charleston, South Carolina, where he was a nuclear submarine mechanic alternating three months at sea and three months on shore. She was permitted to join him there since, even as head of her class, she had not been given her choice of duty station after graduation. She soon became pregnant with Sean which immediately terminated her naval career, not against her wishes.

After about two and one half years in Charleston, Mike was sent to Connecticut as an instructor in a nuclear submarine training facility. They lived in Southwick, Massachusetts, and had a St. Bernard dog with an appetite for socks; this was discovered when it died with one as an intestinal obstruction. Mary Ellen took a job in Springfield as an insurance claims reviewer for The Travelers Insurance Company for $75 a week. After a year, she changed to the St. Paul Insurance Company in Springfield where she started at $400 per month as a rater in the (business) package department. They lived in Southwick for about two years, then Mike left the Navy and they moved to Westfield, Massachusetts, where he completed a college degree using the GI Bill. They bought a duplex house and rented the upper half to cover mortgage payments. Mike went to work for Bechtel Power Corporation which specialized in building nuclear power stations. In mid-winter, the family, Mike, Mary Ellen, and Sean, moved to nearby Montgomery, Massachusetts, where they lived for a year. Their house was a raised ranch-style on an acre of partially wooded land on a small mountain top. This was Mary Ellen's favorite house. The presence of many wild birds—grosbeaks, huthatches, and many unknown species—began her interest in bird watching. During this time, Mary Ellen was still working for St. Paul Insurance. After accepting a job in Florida, Mike sold the two family cars and bought a Corvette, a two-seat sports car, which made further travel by the family of three quite difficult. They moved to Homestead, Florida, so that Mike could take a job as a health physicist at the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant. Mary Ellen had advanced to a full underwriter by this time and was making $12,000 annually. Finding that Homestead top salaries were $7,000 in her field, she enjoyed a few years as a housewife and mother.

In February of 1979, when it became clear their marriage probably would not last, Mary Ellen took a part-time job with the T. R. Jones Insurance Agency in Homestead. Mike moved to Atlanta, Georgia, to work for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Their divorce became final on December 12, 1979, exactly 15 years from the day they met.

About this time Sean was becoming interested in the new microcomputer field. Unable to afford one, he spent hours at a local Radio Shack store programming one of their TRS-80 models. When his mother's 35mm camera outfit was stolen, she used the $400 insurance claim to buy him an Atari system. Soon his interest became a consuming passion, even interfering with high school. Having considerable talent for programming, Sean was soon earning money at it. Several of his ingenious games were featured in national magazines and other publications.

Mary Ellen began working full time for the Jones Agency as an underwriter at $600 per month, far from her Massachusetts salary. She supplemented this by accepting the contract to clean the offices in the evening. In 1981, a lump under her left arm was diagnosed as cancerous and was removed along with many of the surrounding lymph nodes, which proved to be cancer-free. Another breast cancer was discovered in the same area 18 months later. It was also removed and followed up with daily radiation therapy. At this time, 1983, Mary Ellen had to give up her cleaning job, but continued as a full-time underwriter. In spring, 1986, a cancerous lump was found in her left breast and a radical mastectomy was performed. Later that year, it was discovered that breast cancer had metastisized to the liver. It also spread to her bones and she steadily deteriorated until she died at home with her family present.

Mary Ellen was always a rapid and voracious reader. She also loved animals and nature. She frequently visited the Miami Zoo and Everglades National Park. She almost always had a pet dog or cat and was very concerned about wild and stray animals. Like her mother and her mother's mother, she enjoyed playing a wide variety of games. She was highly regarded by her company and was selected to receive the first "Employee of the Year" award in 1987. This included a cash award to be used for travel anywhere east of the Mississippi River. She spent the time in Maryland with her family.

The Social Security Death Index gives Mary Ellen's SSN as 374-48-4723, confirms her birth and death dates, and gives her last residence as Homestead. Her address was 693 NW 11th St.; Homestead, FL 33030; (305)248-6907

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