Marianne H. Hancock, age 96 formerly of Easthampton MA, Somesville, ME and Norwalk CT, died July 17, 2017 at the Wingate Inn at Silver Lake in Kingston, MA with her two daughters at her side. She was the daughter of Marion French Heckman and Jacob Harrison Heckman. During Marianne’s childhood her family moved often, living in many towns throughout New England and also Washington, D.C. She attended the College of William and Mary and later received a B.F.A. from the Yale School of Fine Arts in 1944. She soon joined the Red Cross where she served at an Air Force base in England until VE Day and then in France with unhappy troops waiting to go to the Pacific. Marianne was married for 63 years to George Wade Hancock, an art director for various advertising firms and later for Time Magazine. Marianne and Wade brought up two daughters primarily in Norwalk CT and on retirement moved to Somesville where they had 27 of the best years of their life.
Throughout her life she had many creative outlets. Walking into her home you always knew an artist lived there. She painted on and off for much of her life and in her years in Maine she became quite an accomplished portrait artist. Marianne worked as an art critic, a theatre critic and a feature writer for various newspapers and magazines. She published four books; The Perimeter, a fictionalized memoir of her WWII experience, Madame of the Heights, a biography of Eliza Jumel , Aaron Burr and Mrs. Prevost, and Continuum, a fictionalized retelling of some family stories. During her retirement she traveled widely with her husband and wrote some wonderful but unpublished travelogues.
Marianne was preceded in death by her husband Wade and two sisters Ann H. Kehoe and Margaret G. Heckman. She is survived by her daughters, Mandy Hancock of Union, WV and Ann Hancock of Pembroke, MA, three grandchildren and two great grandchildren. Cremation is planned and a memorial meeting will be held on Saturday, July 22 at Shepherd Funeral Home in Pembroke, MA. In lieu of flowers, contributions in her memory can be made to the Mill Hollow Heritage Association in Alstead, NH or the American Red Cross.