Mary Jean Snell

Mary Jean (Berry) Snell, age 96, died peacefully on June 4, 2026, at her home in Phoenix, Arizona.

Born on September 29, 1928, to Genevieve Olson and James Berry in Lacrosse, Wisconsin, Mary Jean grew up sure that she had caused the Great Depression. Her parents divorced when she was 3 or 4 years old and she divided her time between her father’s Irish family and her mother’s Norwegian clan, attending each family’s church when she was with them. “I pray a little funny,” she joked.

The young Mary Jean went to school in a one-room schoolhouse in Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, on the Kickapoo River, with some of her 32 first cousins on her mother’s side. An aunt was her teacher. After graduating high school she planned to attend the University of Wisconsin in Madison but while working in her mother’s café over the summer she met her first husband, Bud Thompson, a veteran who was working as a clerk at a nearby bank and who quickly became a regular customer at the cafe. They drove West on their honeymoon, taking in the grandeur of the Grand Canyon and the glamor of Hollywood but falling in love with the Sonoran desert. They went home, sold everything, and in 1949 moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Bud got a job at Valley Bank and Mary Jean worked as a bookkeeper and receptionist for the law firm Rawlins, Davis, Christie, Kleiman and Burris. She also took classes at Scottsdale Community College. In 1954, she gave birth to a beautiful daughter, Kirstin Thompson, with whom she was very close.

Bud passed away in 1983. In 1987, Mary Jean married Frank L. Snell, a founding partner of the law firm Snell & Wilmer, who had also lost his first spouse in 1983. Mary Jean became a cherished member of the Snell family and she and Frank were happily married until his death in 1994.

Today we are familiar with the term “sandwich generation,” for those "sandwiched" between caring for their own children and also for their aging parents. Mary Jean would likely have scoffed at the label. For her, caring was not a burden but a selfless act of love, and though it was as difficult for her as for any of us she was genius at it. It showed in her loving care for Bud and then for Frank, and especially for her beloved daughter Kirstin, who succumbed to cancer In 1999.

Mary Jean had a sharp wit and was a shrewd investor who read Barron’s until her eyesight gave out. After that it was the stock ticker on the TV screen. She loved children and animals and supported many charities, especially those concerned with nurses’ education. She also supported Hospice of the Valley, Arizona Humane Society, Junior Achievement, and cancer research. She was a member of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church.

Mary Jean is survived by her brother, Philip Berry, her nieces Rhonda Culpitt and Brenda Gleason, her nephews Brian, John and Christopher Berry, her sister-in-law Donna Berry, her granddaughters Karen, Marilyn and Sarah Snell, and several cousins.

Mary Jean will be interred with her daughter Kirstin and her first husband Bud Thompson on August 14, 2026, at 11:00 a.m. at the County Line Cemetery in Lodi, Wisconsin.