John Wallace 9 BIGELOW
Evergreen Cemetery; Lansing, Ingham County, MI
16C43.8812 John Wallace 9 BIGELOW,
son of Stanley
Eugene 8 (Charles A. 7 ,
Spencer 6
, Eleizer 5
, Joshua 4 , Eleazer 3 Joshua2, John1), and Mary
(HOUSE) BIGELOW, was born 19 Feb 1913 Corunna, MI.
John W. Bigelow was Personnel Director of the New York Rochester
Products Plant of General Motor's AC Delco Division from 1964
until his death 15 March 1970. He married o3 July 1964 to
Mary Ann (nee) Delisle (her second marriage), daughter of
Arthur and Marie Blanche ( ____ ) Delisle of the Isle of Orleans,
Quebec, Canada. Mary Ann was born 01 October 1928 in
Detroit, MI and died 16 March 2000. The Bigelow family home
in 1971 was in Okemos, MI. Mary Ann's obituary states as
follows:
"Mary Ann Bigelow, nee DeLisle,
in the 1950's Maquis. Born in Detroit, MI, October 1,
1928. Died in Las Vegas, NV, March 16, 2000. The
second of 13 children of Arthur and Blanche DeLisle of the Isle
of Orleans, Quebec, Canada, widow of John W. Bigelow, Personnel
Director of the New York Rochester Products Plant of General
Motor's AC Delco Division from 1964 until his death on March 15,
1970. She is survived by their only child, Richard, also
of Las Vegas; several brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and
their extended families. Mary Ann graduated first in a
class of four from a convent school on the Isle of Orleans in
1945. While the other three took the Carmelite Orders, she
went to work for Bell Canada as a switchboard operator and
briefly censored wartime phone conversations. Her work for
Bell Canada carried Mary Ann and her first from Quebec City to
Windsor, Ontario then back in Montreal. In 1953, she quit
both the telephone company and Canada and found work as a night
operator at General Motor's central office in Detroit. She
divorced her first husband in 1960, and after a chance meeting
at a wedding began a long distance relationship with John which
came to fruition when they married on July 03, 1964.
Married six happy years, John died of a heart attack after an
operation for lung cancer, just after returning from a cruise to
Bermuda on the German Liner Breman. Discovering that he
had missed his retirement pension and benefits from the company
by six weeks, she returned to the Bigelow family home in Okemos,
MI in 1971, and eventually returned to work for General Motors
in 1866 as a stationary clerk in the Lansing Headquarters of the
Oldsmotile Division. An avid dancer, she often cut a rug
at the Coverntry Inn of Lansing in the early 1970s with her
partner Merwyn Skamser. Merwyn introduced her to the Sons
of Norway of Lansing and to a lifelong passion, Bridge.
She also took cruises with him and their mutual friend, Martha
Stallings, especially in the Caribbean, until his death in
1986. Mary Ann retired in 1987 and moved to Las Vegas in
1992. In Las Vegas she took up Duplicate Bridge and
continued taking cruises, most recently to the Mediterranean,
the Panama Canal, and the South China Sea where she especially
enjoyed visiting Vietnam. Mary Ann was extraordinarily
generous with her time and money for family and friends.
She put her son through John Hopkins and graduate school at
Rutgers, lent a niece the money for graduate studies at
Northwestern University's Dental School, and covered the cost of
her brother-in-law's life insurance while he lay incapacitated
for over a year. Mary Ann entered a coma after a severe
asthma attack brought on by smoking. She was cremated and
will be laid to rest beside John in Evergreen Cemetery in
Lansing, MI A Memorial Service has been scheduled for 11
a.m. on Monday, March 27, 2000 at People's Chruch, 200 W. Grand
River Avenue, East Lansing, MI".
Child of John Wallace and Mary Ann (Delisle) Bigelow:
16C43.88121 Richard S. Bigelow, b 15 June 1965; attended Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD
Sources:
Bigelow Family Genealogy Volume. II page 283 child;
Bigelow Society historian/genealogist records (prior to 1995)
Reva Ferguson, St. John's MI, sent obituary from State Journal,
Lansing Michigan 25 March 2000.
Mary Ann (DeLisle) Bigelow (1928-2000)
rodbigelow@netzero.net 
