Mary Margaret Rowland

Mary Margaret was born May 27^th, 1946 to William and Nelle Sandersen Williams in Bennington, Vermont.

Her childhood was in the small mountain valley of Dorset, Vermont where she attended the Dorset Village Grammar School, a small old wooden building where her great, great grandfather had also gone to classes! She was always horrified that it still had WOOD fire escapes.

She went to attend St. Johnsbury Academy in northern Vermont and graduated from Burr and Burton Seminary in Manchester, Vermont with the class of 1964.

She received her bachelor’s degree from Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma with a major in history and political science in 1968. She received her MS from ATU, now part of the University of Central Texas in Killeen, Texas. She would go on to study at USA, North Dakota, University of Minnesota, University of Virgina, Austin Peay State University, San Antonio College, Castleton State College which is now part of the University of Vermont. She also took courses at Midland College in their senior citizens program.

In 1966 she had the opportunity to serve as a college missionary on the Navajo Reservation in Fort Defiance, Arizona. It was during this time that her life changed forever when she worked with and observed poverty stricken Indian families. Her philosophy of life would always be to extend the helping hand. She was ever thankful that her college priests in Enid encouraged her for this mission work as they said it would help smooth off some of her idealistic rough edges of the 1960’s.

She started her teaching career in D ’Hanis, Texas in 1968 where she taught all the social science courses. She left her heart in that small community and always said the only mistake she ever made was the day she resigned from that school district.

She moved on to South San Antonio High School which was a large inner-city school with much political turmoil and taught there 1969-1973.

The Watergate Crisis arrived in 1973, and she resigned from her job to be in Washington, DC. She took a job with the Auto Train Corporation that allowed her to be on Capitol Hill during the daytime. She was at the White House the evening that President Nixon resigned. She loved to tell the story of Tom Brokaw, the NBC correspondent buying her an ice cream cone the evening of the resignation. She was asked to teach at the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation High School located on the Chippewa Reservation Belcourt, North Dakota. She taught in the course called The Hope of the Reservation, students that were destined to go to college. She was there for two years and enjoyed traveling through that area of the upper Midwest and Canada. One weekend, she convinced some of her friends to head to Flin Flon, Manitoba, a small town that had intrigued her as a kid reading a geography book.

In 1976 she married Herbert J Rowland at St. Matthews Episcopal Church in Enid, Oklahoma. Her college priest Fr. Barney presided at the August 15^th (St. Mary’s Day) wedding. She then became a Army wife where they would be stationed at Polk. La Fort Campbell, Ky, Fort Hood Texas and South Korea.

She continued to teach at Northwestern Louisiana State University, Western Kentucky University, Central Texas College, Copperas Cove, Texas ISD and Ethan Allen College in Manchester, Vermont.

In 1988 they relocated to Lake Jackson, Texas where she taught at the Windham School or the schools within the walls of Texas Dept of Criminal Justice.

They moved to Midland, Texas in 1990 and she taught their Alternative Education Courses. She retired in 2002 from Lee Freshman as the Director of the Alternative Education Program after several back surgeries. She was so bored with retirement she landed right back in the class as a substitute teacher where she hopes she will still be in the classroom the day she dies.

She was a charter member of Christ Church Anglican, the Friday Group, and the Order of the Holy Cross. She maintained a life membership in the Dorset, Vermont Historical Society where she had served as the curator in the 1980s. She was so proud and happy to be one of the Class Agents for her beloved Burr and Burton Seminary. She always looked forward to rallying the class for one more reunion up upon Seminary Hill. Everyone that ever knew her knew where she had gone to high school and how very proud, she was to have graduated from the same school her great-great grandfather graduated from!

She was predeceased by her parents, two brothers and her husband. She is survived by her son Richard Charles Rowland wife Melonie Rowland and grandchild Loralye Elizabeth Rowland and step grandson Dante Borrego of Midland, Texas as well cousins in Dorset, Vermont and Sandusky, Ohio areas.

If desired donations can be made to Christ Church Building Fund or to the EH Henry Fund at Butt and Burton.

Arrangements are under the direction of Nalley-Pickle & Welch Funeral Home & Crematory in Midland.  Online condolences may be made at www.npwelch.com

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