Mary Isabel Robinson

On Monday, July 9th, Mary Robinson passed peacefully in her sleep at her home with son James McGraw and daughter-in-law Karen Kerr-McGraw, both of whom were at her side. Though her health had failed over the past two years, she continued to light up with kindness and excitement when friends and family came to see her. As she did throughout her life, she made everyone she encountered feel special and loved.

She was always a star among those who knew her. A leap year baby, born on February 29, 1936 in Shreveport, Louisiana, Mary Isabel McKinnon’s picture was featured in the paper immediately upon her arrival. Her father, Merlin McKinnon, (aside from being a forensic pathologist) an amateur photographer, a musician, and a choir director, took many wonderful pictures of his wife and only child, made movies of them, and made a number of 78 records with his daughter before heart disease took him when she was only 8 years old. In her youth Mary (known then as Marybelle) sang in choirs and choral groups, and in the 1960s and 70s, she sang with the Phillips 66 choral group, the Philtones.

Not only was she known for having a beautiful voice, she was beautiful in about every way imaginable. One of her relatives used to brag, “I have a cousin who looks just like Elizabeth Taylor.” Like her father and mother, Mary loved all kinds of entertainment but particularly movies, and to the end she could name (never mind the famous ones) every obscure character actor to cross the screen on TCM. Mary was also a voracious reader, and she wrote stories, painted, and made picture books for her children. She was a great fan of everyone in her life and all they did, but in a way all too rare in our world, she particularly championed their creative endeavors.

The loss of her father and her mother’s baby brother James (killed in World War II) within months of each other shaped young Mary in many ways. She cared deeply for everyone in her life, and she was always building onto her family. She grew up with her grandmother Julia Abney and her mother Mary McKinnon, who went to work for Cities Service Oil Company. After her divorce from her first husband Harry McGraw, Marybelle joined her mother at Cities Service, and together they transferred with her young son James McGraw to Bartlesville, Oklahoma in 1960. Her second marriage yielded another son, Daniel Alexander, and she would maintain a close relationship with daughter Christina for the rest of her life. She also cherished her late husband Bob Robinson’s children Kenneth and Kimberly Robinson, and she maintained close relationships with many members of Bob’s immediate and extended family.

Throughout her life, Mary also worked in the community. In the early 70s, she began working for the Mutual Girl’s Club in Bartlesville’s Concern Center. Later that decade, she worked as an administrative assistant at several different schools in the Bartlesville area as well as other jobs in the school district. In her later years, she worked at the Westside Community Center.

Mary was preceded in death by her parents and her husband Robert Kenneth Robinson. Her sprawling family of descendants can be described various ways, but a conservative count of survivors include three sons and two daughters: James McGraw, Daniel Alexander, Kenneth Robinson, Kimberly Robinson, and Christina. She has 11 grandchildren, Alyson, Molly, and Josh McGraw, Sarah McCormick, Trionna Alexander, Jamie Kerr, Fawn Kerr Theisen, Troy Kerr, Stephen Kerr, and Christina’s children Seth and Sky. She also has 22 great grandchildren, all of whom she adored.