Mary Dempcy

After a brief battle with a virulent lymphatic cancer, Mary Dempcy, 79, passed away at Bend Hospice House on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2015.

She was born in Spokane July 2, 1936, and grew up in Tacoma. She attended the University of Washington, graduated from San Francisco State University and received an MSW degree from California State University in Sacramento in 1970.

With husband and partner Rene Tihista, Dempcy created the Stress Personalities Model for stress and conflict management. Together, they authored "Your Stress Personalities, A Look Inside Our Selves," (also published in German and Spanish editions); "Dear Job Stressed: Answers for the Overworked, Overwrought and Overwhelmed," as well as training manuals and workbooks on stress and conflict management.

Along with Rene, she trained thousands of healthcare professionals, high-tech employees, engineers at Cape Canaveral, Cal Tech, Sun Microsystems and was featured trainer for three years at the Rosalyn Carter Institute for Caregiving and trained thousands of personnel in wide varieties of businesses and educational institutions in the U.S. and Canada.

Avid backpackers, she and her husband backpacked wilderness areas in every western state; in Death Valley; into the Grand Canyon; the French Alps and Pyrenees; and New Zealand's Southern Alps. After many years of trekking the High Sierras, they settled in Sisters Country in 1994 because as she remarked, "Three Sisters Wilderness is in our backyard."

Throughout their long worklife, Dempcy and her husband never let their business interfere with backpacking and sojourning in Mexico.

Dempcy often remarked that "When I get old, I doubt I'll remember the work we turned down but will surely remember the towering peaks, the lush meadows, the wildflowers, streams, rivers and the joyous wilderness experiences."

She will be remembered for her skill as a therapist, teacher and writer, her wisdom, her beauty inside and out and especially her wit. Her husband revealed a sample shortly before her death: "We were having one of those forgettable disputes couples who've been together nearly 40 years have and of course I was insisting that my position was obviously right when she looked at me and said, "You know honey, it's a pity you didn't marry yourself. You'd never lose an argument."

She is survived by her husband, Rene Tihista, of Sisters; Curt Sorkin of Soquel, Calif.; Scott Sorkin of San Jose; and grandchildren, Remy, Arielle and Micah Sorkin.