January 10, 1935 – April 14, 2023
Marcia Katzman Allen passed away peacefully of natural causes on the morning of April 14, 2023 at the Vi at Palo Alto Assisted Living.
Marcia led a very full life. She was born Marcia Harriet Katzman January 10, 1935 to Arthur J. Katzman and Beatrice Jacobs Katzman. Marcia’s parents were Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe who lived an American rags to riches story.
Her parents valued a good education and that was embodied in their daughter. Marcia graduated with honors from Forest Hills High School in Forest Hills, New York in 1952, going on to Bryn Mawr College,graduating again with honors in 1956 with an A.B. in Biology. Breaking the model for women in the 1950s, Marcia went on to graduate school at
Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. At Stanford, Marcia met Matthew Allen, a young graduate student from Edinburgh, Scotland. They married in September 1957.
Marcia earned a PhD in Molecular Biology from Stanford University in 1961.
The following year, while in a post graduate fellowship at MIT in Boston, Massachusetts, her first son, Bruce, was born. Her second child, Peter,was born in 1965. The family then moved back to California for Matthew to take a job at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). That is where their third son, David, was born.
Over Marcia’s long career, she worked at Syntex and Nellcor. Her longest position was as a lecturer in Biology at Stanford University where she ran the undergraduate labs. Working as a lecturer at Stanford gave Marcia the flexibility she desired to spend summers with her children and to engage in countless civic and social activities that she and Matthew participated and led in the Mid-Peninsula area.
Marcia was highly active in the League of Women Voters and the American Association of University Women (AAUW), where she led many committees. She served as the program chair and president of the Morning Forum of Los Altos. Marcia and Matthew were also long time patrons of the Oregon Shakespeare Festive in Ashland, OR. Marciaorganized many social activities. She loved to travel and organized trips with friends far and wide. Her final trip was to Mexico with her family just before the pandemic. Marcia and Matthew loved to entertain and hosted many events in their Mountain View home of 40 years.
In 2005 they moved into Vi at Palo Alto, then called Classic Residence by Hyatt. Among the original residents at this active retirement community, they worked tirelessly at forming its different committees and social organizations so that the Palo Alto campus became the envyof all the Vi campuses.
They spent their first 16 years in the “independent living” side of the Vi, with the last year on the “care center” side. The family would like to thank the Vi’s caring staff for making Marcia’s last year as comfortable as possible and the Hospice staff for its help in the last month. The family especially extends a warm thank you to Marcia’s personal caregivers, Isabelita and Vida, for their continual care and compassion.
As one of Marcia’s nephews summed it up, Marcia was “One of the brightest and most interesting people I’ve ever known”. She will be dearly missed.
There are no services planned. A memorial of life at the Vi will be announced later. For information contact her son Peter at [email protected].
Marcia is survived by her husband of over 65 years, Matthew Allen, her sons Bruce (Rina), Peter (Marlon) and David (Jane); grandsons Ryan and William, many dear cousins and countless friends whose lives she enriched beyond measure.
In lieu of flowers, donations be made to one of Marcia’s organizations in her name.
The family suggests:
Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) at https://openspacetrust.org/donate/
Bryn Mawr College at https://engage.brynmawr.edu/Make-a-gift