Marion M. Kane

In the end, Marion was surrounded by loved ones. A memorial service will be held at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 8, at the Falmouth Congregational Church, 267 Falmouth Road, Falmouth, Maine. Marion’s obituary appeared Thursday morning in the Bangor Daily News and in the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram.

Marion became executive director of the Barr Foundation in 2000, and she served in that role until she retired in June 2008. “Our sense of loss is exceeded only by our gratitude for the privilege of working closely with Marion as our first executive director at Barr,” says Barbara Hostetter, president of the Barr Foundation. “Her DNA will always be in our work. We will miss her and we will honor and protect her legacy.”

Before she left Barr, Marion composed a memo reflecting on what had changed at the Foundation and in Boston during her tenure. In it she noted, “I have always said that the mark of a good executive director is that he or she can walk out the door and no one will notice or care that they have gone.”

She was wrong on both counts. In ways uncountable, we are all beneficiaries of the foundation she envisioned and shepherded into being. As Marion walks out this door, we all notice. We are bereft that she has gone.