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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Obituary: Cutler, Mary Peringer

CUTLER, Mary Peringer (Age 87) Mary Elizabeth Peringer Cutler died of natural causes on St. Patrick’s day.

Mary was born in 1927 in Oaksdale, Washington to Roy Virgil Peringer and Pearl Porter Peringer.

She was the youngest of four children, preceded by George Peringer, Faith Thorn, and Roy Peringer, Jr. She grew up on a farm near Belmont, Washington in her beloved Palouse Hills.

Mary loved learning and started to school early because she begged so hard to go with her siblings.

In high school at Oaksdale she was awarded the Scholarship Cup for the whole school four years in a row.

Mary loved riding her horse and had a short-lived desire to be a trick rider until she fell off her horse while trying to stand on its back.

She trained her dog to ride in front of her, and spent many happy hours exploring outdoors.

She was always more interested in work that happened outside the house than in, and during wheat harvest in the 1940’s she was one of the first women bulk-truck drivers in the area.

She attended Whitman College and received a degree in biology.

She also spent time driving her jeep with friends to ski and eventually married one of those friends, Maynard Cutler, in 1948.

At her death they had been married for almost 67 years.

After they were married they spent two years at the University of Madison, where Maynard was studying physics and Mary worked in the biology lab, and they had fine adventures living in a Quonset Hut.

When they became pregnant with their first child they chose to return to farm near Spokane.

Mary and Maynard spent their lives working together on their farms while raising their six children, first at Orchard Prairie on Maynard’s family farm, and after 1968 at a farm near Nine Mile Falls on the Spokane River.

Mary loved reading, collecting rocks, poetry, hearing her kids play music, knitting, photography, and anything outside.

She was always interested in the latest scientific news, and after her kids left home she spent a year identifying and photographing every flower that bloomed in the woods around the farm and created an illustrated record of her observations.

In the past two years, her scope was reduced by physical limitations, but even after she could no longer easily walk, she rode her three-wheeled recumbent bike around the farm.

Especially in her last years she was known by all who met her for her warm smile that lit up her face, a smile that lasted even after she had lost many of the words that she loved so much.

Mary is survived by her husband and her six children and spouses: Maynard, Jr. (Sherry), Dan (Kathy), Kit (Kristin), Robert (Jill), Judy (Mark) Milliette, and Katie (Tom) Talbott; as well as 13 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews.

All were dear to her.

In her words: “I have lived a lovely life with a lovely family.”

For memorials, Mary said: “If anyone wants to remember me, do it by looking for the first buttercup, listening to a meadowlark, watching a heron, walking in the rain, enjoying a baby’s smile, reading a story to a child, listening to your children, or singing a song.”