Mary was a teacher of literature at Homestead High School in Mequon for over three decades.
She was known by her colleagues and friends for her grace and wit, her keen intelligence, her deep compassion and her great love of animals. She was a voracious reader on a broad range of subjects and her husband never quite built enough bookshelves for her. Their house remains a congestion of many volumes.
Mary grew up in the open spaces of Brookfield and often would enjoy her weekends on a farm near Mukwonago with her father and mother and grandmother and aunt. It was there she would ride horses with her father.
She graduated from Mount Mary College where she studied drama and went on to study acting briefly at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. (Her husband always felt this gave her an unfair advantage in marriage.) She returned to England many times since and loved its history and its people and its culture.
As a teacher she inspired her students to higher levels of appreciation of the written word in novels and essays and plays and poetry from Shakespeare to Conrad to Emerson and Fitzgerald, to name but a few.
In her last months she suffered ALS with courage and strength as it stole from her a little more physically every single day. In her garbled voice she and her husband exchange “I love yous” to each other a hundred times a day. In the very early hours of Valentine’s day with her beloved husband and dogs present Mary shed her mortal coil. Gary will forever fail to describe the enormity of her loss for himself and Ben and Mara.
A visitation for family and friends to gather to remember Mary will take place from 2 PM until 5 PM on Wednesday, February 26th at Schmidt and Bartelt Funeral Home, 10280 N. Port Washington Road, Mequon, WI 53092. A private burial will take place on February 27th.
To all of our friends who reached out to us in support with offers of help, with cards and flowers and food and other heartfelt gestures, know that it meant everything to Mary and me. It seems impossible to adequately express thanks, but we are truly grateful.
Night Train to Paris
Our aged bodies
surrender to the sway
and lurch of the train
as we have passed through
the long tunnel
beneath the sea
old is a foreign country
we ride to
when we get there
we will rise to higher places
sit with gargoyles
balance on high slate roofs
as light slips through us
we sleep on park benches
dry leaves chasing around
us like wicked urchins
I will fish the river
in a floppy hat
mouthing a Gauloises
and you with a book splayed
in your lap will feed pigeons the remains
of your bread while sitting
on a soft blanket
and we will glance at each other
as only such longtime companions can with a pure knowing
later we will write postcards
from an empty bistro
—trumpet notes weave into the cool dark air—
telling the children back home
we are here now
and they will not see us again
