Mary Cumpston was born on 1941 in Canberra, Australia ACT to John Stanley and Helen Ida Dunbar Cumpston. Since Mary had the same first name as her mother, she has been known as Mary or H. Mary for her entire life. Mary graduated in 1956 from Merton Hall Melbourne Girls Grammar School, and worked in the Australian Acquisitions department of the Australian National Library from 1958 to 1963. She graduated in 1962 from Australian National University in Canberra with a degree in French and History. She served as a lay missionary in the Western highlands of Papua New Guinea under Bishop Bernarding starting in 1963. At the time the natives in New Guinea were a primitive stone age culture. She met Ray there (who was also a lay missionary) and they were married on December 6, 1963 in New Guinea. Afterwards, the couple returned to the US and they lived for a short time with his parents. Mary received a Master ' s degree in library science in 1972 from the Library Association of Australia.

Upon moving to Pittsburgh, the family purchased a home at 1218 Morningside Ave and the kids entered school at St. Raphael's school just a few blocks away. She received her Ph. D. in Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh in 1980. Her dissertation was "Expert systems for reference and information retrieval" which was published in 1980 and was a seminal work in searching for information on the internet. In 1981 she worked on databases for NCSS and as a Senior systems analyst for Dresser industries until Dresser moved to Texas. In 1984 She worked at Chatham University as the head of the Information Science Department there for

3 years but was unable to get tenure. Mary taught Computer Science at IUP (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) from 1987 until her retirement in 2004. She specialized in computer security and wrote two textbooks and published many scholarly papers. One of her courses was certified by the NSA as a security curriculum. After Mary became a professor at IUP, the family first moved to Delmont to make the commute more palatable for both of them, and then later to Indiana .

After her retirement from IUP, she completed her H&R Block tax certification course. Mary then pursued her love of cooking by earning a Culinary Arts degree from Penn State Extension and became a chef. Passionate about helping others, she completed hours of training with the American Red Cross and was assigned to sheltering for various Hurricanes including Hugo, floods in New Jersey and Vermont , fires in California as well as local fires. She also served as a hospice volunteer with the Visiting Nurses Association.

Mary was an active parishioner and enthusiastic volunteer at St. Bernard of Clairvaux Catholic church. She volunteered in several church ministries including the health ministry. In recent years, she was instrumental in founding and advancing the Grandmother Corps, an organization to help grandmothers indoctrinate their grandchildren in the Christian faith, a cause dear to her heart. After being diagnosed with brain cancer in 2013, she taught herself web design and launched a web site for the group.

Mary was an active member of the Catholic Daughters of the Americas for which she was once a regent and subsequently volunteered for several years. She is survived by her husband Ray Micco of Indiana, 3 siblings, Richard Cumpston of Melborune Australia, William Cumpston of South Australia, and Margaret Bourke of Canberra Australia . 5 children John Micco of Pleasanton California, Patricia Crain of Whitesboro TX, Linda Richmond of Fairfax VA, Dan Micco of Naperville IL, and Joan Robbins of Herndon VA, 15 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren.

Friends and family will be received at Bowser-Minich Funeral home at 500 Ben Franklin Road o n Sunday, August 14th from 2-4 and 7-9. There will be a funeral mass at 11am on Monday, August 15th at St. Bernard of Clairvaux Roman Catholic Church at 200 Clairvaux Drive, Indiana.

Memorial donations may be made to the Visiting Nurses Association of Indiana County at 850 Hospital Road in Indiana ( www.vnaindiana.org ).

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