A beloved children’s book author and her husband, a gifted photographer, died by suicide in their Astoria home earlier this month.

Petra and Michael Mathers, aged 78 and 79, were well known on the North Coast for their contributions to the arts. Police confirmed that the couple died by suicide after responding to a call on Feb. 6 from a local business that had received one of several letters the couple had sent to people in the community.

Steve Forrester and Brenda Penner, who were neighbors and friends of the couple, received a letter typed by Michael Mathers and signed by Michael and Petra.

“By the time you read this, my wife and I will be dead,” the letter began.

Penner said it appeared the suicides had been planned for some time, in part due to the similarities between the letter and Petra Mathers’ last book, “When Aunt Mattie Got Her Wings.”

The book is about grieving the death of a loved one and is meant to help children process difficult emotions alongside the well-loved main characters, Lottie the chicken and Herbie the duck. In the book, they cope with the death of Lottie’s Aunt Mattie, who leaves a note for them.

“Dear Lottie and Herbie, by the time you read this, I will be dead, and I imagine you’re feeling a little down in the beak,” the note begins. “That’s why I’m writing this letter.”

“When Aunt Mattie Got Her Wings” was published in 2014.

“Numerous people got letters from Cannon Beach to Knappa, that I’m aware of,” Penner said. “Some were handwritten by Petra to her close friends.”

The reactions to the couple’s deaths have varied widely. Some people, Penner said, had been expecting this to happen. Others were blindsided.

Penner said she and her husband hosted the Mathers at their house in January and they appeared to be in good condition. Steve Forrester, a former editor and publisher of The Astorian, is the president and CEO of EO Media Group.

“Because of the fact that they just did this and left and told a few people, rumors have run rampant, unfortunately,” Penner added.

Petra and Michael Mathers had been married for over 40 years at the time of their deaths.

Petra Mathers had moved to the United States from Germany at the end of World War II. She settled in Portland before moving to Astoria with her husband. She began painting when she started decorating her son’s bedroom, and was soon showing in galleries around Oregon and Washington state.

By 1985, Petra Mathers had written and illustrated her first book. She would go on to write a dozen more children’s books and illustrate over 40. The playful saga featuring best friends Herbie and Lottie, who lived on the Oregon Coast, was one of her most popular series.

Michael Mathers saw much of his life through a lens, having discovered photography his senior year of college. He was a photography instructor at Harvard University before he set off on his first photo expedition in 1972 with the National Science Foundation to the Ethiopian bush.

Michael Mathers also frequented the seas, initially as an assistant with a marine construction job and then as first mate on a schooner.

An architectural photographer for three decades, he returned to his roots of photographing people more than a decade ago when he began a photo series of local police officers, firefighters, public works employees and other workers titled “Work Spaces.” The photos were displayed at City Hall for a Labor Day art show in 2013 and featured in an exhibit at the Royal Nebeker Art Gallery at Clatsop Community College in 2019.

In an interview with Coast Weekend in 2019, Michael Mathers said he had never had as much fun with a project as he did photographing the local Astorians and their work.

“The books that I’d done, I’d have to drive all the way across the country or ride the rails but here it is just so fertile of visuals and it is so open,” he said. “People are just sort of open. I don’t know how long that will happen.”

Patricia Flynn, who had been a friend of the couple for over 40 years, said Michael Mathers always said he only had room in his life for three things: Petra, rowing and photography.

“‘I think they planned it to a T,” she said. “Why, at this moment, no one really knows.”

Flynn said, “They had a love that was really, really special. They were like one, really. And I think the idea of one without the other was horrific. They couldn’t imagine that.”