Obituaries
Obituary: Marianna E. (Mollie) Oliver, 98, of Westport
Along with her late husband, she was a longtime international civil servant, working for the United Nations and other IGOs.
Marianna E. (Mollie) Oliver (nee Egar) passed away after a long illness on January 27, 2023 at the age of 98. A Westport resident for over 70 years, she worked as a translator, writer, and editor for the United Nations as well as other international governmental organizations (IGOs) her entire professional life until retiring in her 80s.
Born on November 19, 1924 in Burnley, Lancashire in northwest England, she graduated with top honors (a "First") in Modern Languages, from Somerville College, Oxford in 1945.
She and Thomas Wood Oliver were married in 1947 and they moved to the United States that same year to begin work for the newly founded United Nations, first in Lake Success, Long Island and then in Manhattan following the completion of the U.N. headquarters.
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In the beginning she worked full-time as a translator of French and Spanish and later as an editor until some time after the birth of her two children in the early 1950s. For the next five decades she was in much demand by the U.N. and by other IGOs, including ECOSOC (the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council), PAHO (Pan American Health Organization), and IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) as both a translator and precis writer. She did these many jobs part-time, dividing the rest of her time between the family's town house in Albufeira on the southern coast of Portugal, and the family home in Westport.
Soon after its founding in the 1950s, she became a member of the Westport Weston Community Theater, and over the next six decades, had many leading and supporting roles in the Theater's productions, among them the early The Lady's Not for Burning in the mid-1950s and culminating in her final role at the age of 90 in Agatha Christie's The Unexpected Guest.
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She loved all kinds of literature and read avidly and widely, was a keen gardener and birdwatcher, but first and foremost, she was a loving wife, mother, and friend.
Predeceased by her husband of 48 years, Thomas Wood Oliver, in 1995, she is survived by her son Thomas Richard Oliver of Westport and her daughter Griselda Ann Oliver of Rockwall, Texas. She will be ever loved and sorely missed.
