Mary Jean Hammack

Mary Jean Hammack, 90, peacefully joined her husband Jerry in heaven on August 17, 2025. Her last few days on earth were spent with many of those closest to her – her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and friends.

She was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1935, to Eugene and Mary Hobson and grew up in Lander, Wyoming, with her parents and her younger brother Jim. Some eight years younger than her, she always joked (to his face) that Jim was a mistake. (Not to worry, Jim always gave as good as he got.)

Entering college at 18 in Montana to become a nurse, Mary Jean quickly learned that she fainted at the sight of blood. That was the end of that. Back in Lander at 19, she fell madly in love with Jerry, a lineman with Mountain Bell who bore a striking resemblance to a young Elvis Presley.

Newly married in 1956, she traveled with Jerry throughout the western part of Wyoming, including stints in Rock Springs, Green River, Evanston, Afton, and Jackson Hole, before settling down for a time in Cheyenne. In the late 1950s and early 1960s the couple had three boys – Steve, Dode and Doug – in quick succession. She always said that she was thankful to have had a houseful of boys, even though they were notorious for pranks and chaos (the story of how high she jumped at the snake they had hung over the front door to the house is the stuff of legend). Well into their 40s, she’d tease her boys that they’d maintained the maturity of 13-year-olds.

As much as she loved fancy dresses or dancing at Svilar’s in Hudson, she never shied away from getting muddy with her boys. She was usually the voice of decency and reason in our house, but she was no stranger to a bawdy joke. And we loved her for it.

Independent and adventurous, Mary Jean had a host of hobbies that kept her busy throughout her life. An avid skier, she enjoyed the slopes from Colorado to Idaho, Utah and Nevada. (She broke her ankle twice while skiing – both times by running into Jerry on the slopes.) For years, they camped and water skied with her brother, Jim, and his family throughout the West.

She loved riding horses. Growing up in Lander, her father had almost 20 head of horses. In the ‘90s, she rode more than 20 miles into the Jim Bridger wilderness area to spend a week camping with family, battling so many mosquitoes, it became a one-time trip.

She joined a square-dancing club and spent several years letting Jerry promenade her around the dance floor. And she gambled. Boy, could she gamble.

Blackjack was her game. She slayed the tables in Las Vegas, on cruise ships, and casinos from Mesquite, Nevada, to the reservation around Lander. She played in several tournaments and almost always came home with more cash than she’d left with.

No one was surprised, then, that she was good with numbers. Living in Cheyenne in the early 1960s, Mary Jean worked with her best friend, Billie, as a waitress in a small diner before moving to the “corporate world” at Mountain Bell. By the 1980s she had moved up the ladder to become one of only a handful of female second-level managers in the state of Wyoming. After retiring in the mid-1980s, she and Jerry moved to Breckenridge where they skied more than 50 days a year, and she kept the books for the Breckenridge Resort Chamber.

In 1994, Mary Jean and Jerry returned to their beloved Lander. They watched their family grow and regularly welcomed everyone for Thankmas (a combined Thanksgiving and Christmas). She taught countless grandchildren and great-grandchildren about her favorite things. She taught them to play cards (successfully). She taught them to ski (somewhat less successfully). And most importantly, she and Jerry taught everyone what it looks like to stay in love your whole life.

Mary Jean is survived by her children, Steve (Carolyn), Dode, and Doug (Tammy), nine grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her daughter-in-law, Wally, in 2023. Jerry passed in May of 2024. At his request, instead of a funeral, they gathered to celebrate his life and spread his ashes in the Popo Agie River. Mary Jean has requested the family do the same for her. The family look forward to reuniting them.