Our dear Wife, Mother, Grandmother (etc.), Educator, Councilor and Friend has passed from this life into eternal rest with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ whom she loved all her life. Mary Raney Khan left us the morning of November 26, peacefully, in her sleep at home with her family. She was 98 years old.
Mary Evangeline Raney was the first-born child to Albert & Carrie Craig Raney on November 1, 1908 in Drayton Township near Drayton, North Dakota.
She moved with her family to Morgan Hill in 1918 at the age of 10. She and her brothers attended school in the Old Grange Hall until Morgan Hill Elementary School was built. She was one of the longest living participants of Stanford’s Dr. Lewis Terman’s longitudinal study of gifted Children. She graduated from Live Oak High School with honors in 1925. Yearbooks speak to her dramatic, athletic, musical and scholastic interests. In 1929 she graduated from Stanford University Magna Cum Laude with a B.S. and M.S. in bacteriology. She left California to attend Medical School in New York and work for the Rockefeller Institute when the Great Depression limited her research opportunities. In 1933 she married John Hamilton Khan and they moved to Raney property in Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to survive the Depression and manage the real estate holdings of Mary’s Father and where their first four children were born. In the mid-forties they came back to Morgan Hill where a fifth child was born. She became a schoolteacher and taught 30 years for the Morgan Hill School District in various schools.
Mary had been retired for 31 years and often remarked that she received more money in retirement than she did all through her teaching career. “They didn’t expect me to live this long”, she quipped.
Mary kept a keen mind and active interest in everything. She was an avid reader and studied her Bible daily. Her favorite T.V. programs were Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, where she knew the answers long before the contestants did. She was an accomplished pianist and her children remember her playing Minuets and Waltzes to get them to sleep. Her first grandchildren could read music before they could read and from that beginning she instilled a love for knowledge and a passion for research that continues today. She loved to garden and in her latter years took pleasure in her assortment of orchids and African violets. She always had a heart for education and in her retirement years enjoyed tutoring the next three generations of children. Learning was what motivated Mary.
She was a member of the honor society Phi Beta Kappa, Mensa America, American Association of University Women and several educational organizations such as the CRTA, AFT and NEA. Locally she was a member of Shadow Mountain Baptist Church and the Morgan Hill Historical Society.
As a child in North Dakota she went to school in a horse and buggy, her father embraced technology and was among the first to own an automatic “machine” for his farm, patterning a love in Mary for all things new and innovative. She often remarked that she had lived during the most exciting century as she saw the explosion of discovery in technology, science, education and medicine. She remembers when electricity came out to the ranch and when traveling at 20 miles per hour in a horseless carriage with an older cousin was scandalous. She considered the clothes washer to be the liberator of women, followed closely by the microwave.
She was a first adopter of anything that advanced the educational experience. When she retired from teaching she attended Gavilan Jr. College to continue her studies in Microbiology, a field of scientific research only dreamed of during her time at Stanford and computer science because she wanted to be on the cutting edge of all things educational.
Mary is survived by her husband John Hamilton Khan of Morgan Hill and their five children, Carol (David) Agaliotis of Morgan Hill, CA, John Charles (Ellen) Khan of Aromas, CA, Eleanor (Ken) Keuning of Mariposa, CA, Barbara (Bill) Thomas of Fremont, CA, and Richard Khan of Morgan Hill, CA. Grandchildren include the children of David and Carol Agaliotis; Perrin (Agaliotis) Larton, Pamala (Agaliotis) Meador, Paul Agaliotis, David Agaliotis, Angelo Agaliotis, Steven Agaliotis, Christopher Agaliotis, Alexander Agaliotis, Austin Agaliotis, Michael Agaliotis, Christiana Agaliotis. The children of John Charles and Ellen Khan; Charles Khan, Christopher Khan, Kathleen Khan. The children of Eleanor Keening; Gus Kambeitz and Jennifer Kambeitz. The children of Barbara and Bill Thomas; Juliet Thomas and Erika (Thomas) Minor. The children of Richard Khan; John Khan, Jeffrey Khan, and Heather Khan.
Mary is also survived by 12 great-grandchildren. Lisa (Venosta) May, Lyndee (Venosta) Richardson, Daniel Venosta, Michael Venosta, Marcie (Venosta) Foster, Cassie (Venosta) Davis, Isaac Agaliotis, Peter Agaliotis, Branden Khan, Johnathon Khan, Owen Khan, Samantha Khan and Sophia Minor. Also surviving are 10 Great-great-grandchildren; Carter May, Marcus Richardson, Ryan Richardson, Christian Venosta, Hailey Venosta, Marsha Foster, Tawny Foster, Brian Morris, Raistlin Davis, and Hunter Davis.
She is also survived by her sister Eleanor Hornall of Redding and brothers Donald Raney of Santa Barbara, CA and Bill Raney of Virginia. Preceding Mary in death were her parents, and brothers Edwin Raney, Robert Raney, and Charles Raney.
The family wishes to invite all who were touched by Mary to services which are to be held at 2:00 PM on Saturday, December 2, 2006, at Johnson Funeral Home in Morgan Hill.
