Mary Lou Grovenburg
July 6, 1931 - March 11, 2017
KAPLAN — Mary Lou Grovenburg passed away early Saturday morning at the age of 85 surrounded by people who loved her. A celebration of her life will be held at 1:00PM on Saturday, March 18, 2017 at St. Francis Cabrini Catholic Church, in Kaplan LA. Interment will follow at Lakeview Memorial Cemetery in Lake Arthur, LA. Friday night, March 17th, a wake will be held from 5 pm – 9 pm. At 7 pm everyone is invited to share a fond memory of our loved mother and grandmother. The funeral home will be open at 9 am Saturday until services.
Mary Lou Miller was born in Cordell, Oklahoma during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl Era. She often talked about these two events as “the best of times and the worst of times”. Scarcities of money and jobs were some of her earliest memories. Her childhood was forged in these hard circumstances and undoubtedly developed the spirit of independence and courage that would be needed and then applauded later in her life. Mary Lou came to be known as a ‘fighter’ even as a child. She spent part of her early life in a Catholic orphanage separated from her brother Fred and sister Betty. Her mother, Fern, died when Mary Lou was four years old and her dad, John was chasing work, so the children were sent away to school. Her only solace was a kindly old nun who would allow Mary Lou to slide her chubby little hands under the lap garment of the nun’s habit as she did needle work. By the time she was old enough to enter school, Mary Lou had fine-tuned various survivor skills that kept her in detention in the cloak closet many hours a week. Her memories of those years are harsh, but she insisted always that it was good for her to have it so hard. She already was becoming part of ‘The Greatest Generation’! Somewhere after this, her maternal grandparents took all three children to live with them in Tulsa, a city with lots of life. Her grandfather was a prominent figure around the stock yards, and money was no problem. Mary Lou remembered even having an electric vacuum cleaner and movies on Saturday nights! But then a twang of ‘parental conscience’ caused her grandad (as she lovingly called him) to move his new family to the hills of Oklahoma to get back to the good life. Suddenly, life became very hard. Livestock was still their income, but now they lived on the pig farm (with a still out back that brought in a little extra money at times, until the Feds shut him down).
These were the years of out-door privies, wood stove cooking, kerosene lamp lighting, castor oil spring purging, and clothes washing Saturdays down at the creek. Later, they got barrels to accommodate that and bathing. But through it all, Mary Lou developed a love for reading, music and people. Her grandmother taught her to cook, can, play cards and memorize and recite poetry, all of which Mary Lou’s own children and grandchildren would someday richly enjoy over and over and over!
During these years, she and her brother attended a one room school house set atop of Bugscuffle Hill which they walked to in every kind of weather imaginable. Finally, her grandparents allowed her to bus into high school in Tulsa once again. There she graduated with honors and accolades. This was the first indication that education would become the hallmark of her life.
She met a dashing young soldier back from The Big One, WWII in late ’48, married him in ’49 and started a family 10 months later. She and Frank, the one and only love in her life, soon had 4 more children. In those days you did whatever you had to do to keep body and soul together, so they moved a lot chasing work also. Over the next 2 decades they moved from Oklahoma wheat fields to the Texas oilfields and eventually home steading in south Louisiana. All the while, Mary Lou was a happy mother, homemaker and wife. But Louisiana opened up a new vista to her…teaching in the public school system. Starting slowly, trudging methodically, and never quitting, she acquired a Bachelors degree and a Masters plus 30 all done through night school and summers. She was still raising her family and working full time in the teaching profession already.
Over the next 3 decades she was a renowned and revered teacher in Vermillion, Cameron and Jeff Davis parish. Many recognitions and awards were granted to her skill and diligence in the education arena. But her classroom was never confined to 4 walls and a chalkboard. It was found in a butterfly hovering over a flower, a nature walk around the campus or a turtle found on the playground near a roadside ditch. It didn’t end on school grounds as she took her classes to local productions or had her friend & author Mary Alice Fontenot come in to speak to her students of Clovis Crawfish and other literary characters.
She loved teaching, loved learning, and loved watching children grasp truths, concepts, abilities and skills. Her natural curiosity took her to all parts of the world including China, many European countries and throughout this great country that she so loved. This curiosity she instilled in her students, her own children & grandchildren so they, too would want to do what she loved most, and that was learning something new.
Following her retirement from teaching in 1992, she enjoyed the paradise of Grand Chenier among a bouquet of dear friends and family. Hurricane Rita in 2005 proved devastating to the area and scattered many close friends all over the country. At this point, Kaplan, LA became her new home creating an opportunity for her to fulfill her role as the family matriarch. Many wonderful Thanksgivings (her favorite holiday) have left indelible imprints on her children and grandchildren’s lives. Hardnosed pinochle games, banana bread baking, late night discussions around her kitchen table, plays and concerts attended, poetry readings and biscuit throw downs, will be cherished memories of ‘Grandma Grovenburg’.
She is survived by her son, Dr. James Kurt Grovenburg and his wife, Dr. Lucinda of Kerhonkson, NY; three daughters, Luanne and her husband, Mike Gorom of Pasadena, TX, JoBeth Bourgeois and her husband, Bobby Moss of Abbeville, and Frankie and her husband, Guy Broussard of Santa Rosa Beach, FL; sixteen grandchildren; and multiple great grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by her husband of 41 years, Frank A. Grovenburg; and one son, Dr. Bruce Grovenburg.
All funeral arrangments are being conducted by Vincent Funeral Home of Kaplan. Condolences my be sent to the Grovenburg family at www.vincentfuneralhome.net.