Mary Cauffield Hinman died peacefully in her sleep at home in Pullman on Sunday, October 25. She was eighty six years old. She was born Mary Louise Cauffield on May 10, 1929 in the tenant house on the Cauffield family farm south of West Fairfield, Pennsylvania to Thomas and Dorothy Cauffield. The farm had been in the Cauffield family for generations, ever since the original land grant was received from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The family later moved to West Fairfield, where Mary lived until she graduated from nearby Ligonier High School as valedictorian in her class. She entered Margaret Morrison College at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, PA on a half tuition scholarship in 1947. There she joined Delta Gamma sorority and was elected to the top honorary societies CWENS, Mortar Board, and Phi Kappa Phi. She majored in General Science with a chemistry option, graduated in the spring of 1951, and began work as Editor in the Petroleum Research Laboratory in the Chemistry Department at the university.

Mary met her husband, George Hinman, at a party in the Carnegie Faculty Club at Christmas time in 1951. They went together during the winter and spring of 1952 and married on June 19 of that year. They lived in Pittsburgh, and Mary continued to compile and edit the data output of the Petroleum Research Laboratory, eventually completing a major volume of thermodynamic properties of the constituents of petroleum. In 1955, when their first son, Norman, was born, Mary became full time mother to him and later to their daughters, Lydia and Nancy.

In 1956 the family began to spend summers in La Jolla, California, where George was a consultant to the General Atomic Division of General Dynamics Corporation. They spent seven summers in this way before moving full time to La Jolla in 1963. The family moved to Pullman in 1969, when George took a faculty position at Washington State University. Mary was able to resume employment when the children became older and more independent. She worked in the libraries at Washington State University and the University of Idaho from 1974 until 1989, when she retired.

Mary was a wonderful mother who maintained close and loving relationships with her children throughout her life. She loved the other family members -- the pets and the plants – as well.. She loved the natural environment around us and strived to preserve and improve it.
Mary had strong ideas and convictions. She wore a hemp jacket and supported hemp as an alternative crop for Palouse agriculture long before there was any sentiment to legitimize marijuana. She would not eat any food that required an animal to die to supply it. She was dedicated to organically grown produce and other health food products many years before people accepted those ideas. She rebuked people whose cigarette smoke offended others.

Mary is survived by her husband of 63 years, George Hinman, at the family home; son, Norman Hinman (Cindy) of Auburn, CA; daughters Lydia Hinman (Quintin Woirhaye) of Arlee, MT and Nancy Hinman (Todd Carlson) of Missoula, MT; granddaughter, Elise Hinman of Syracuse, NY; sisters-in-law, Susan Young of Spartanburg, SC and Alice Cauffield of Rocky River, OH; and by many cousins, nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her parents; her brother, Paul Cauffield, in 1962; and her sister, Margaret Cauffield, in 1995.

A celebration of Mary's life will be held at 2:00 PM Monday, Nov. 2, at Kimball Funeral Home in Pullman. Memorial contributions in Mary's honor are suggested to the Alzheimer Foundation or a charity of your choice. Kimball Funeral Home of Pullman has been entrusted with funeral arrangements.