Mary Louise McMaster Reeves

Mary Louise McMaster Reeves died peacefully at her home in Simpsonville, South Carolina on March 13, 2019, at the age of 91. Mary Lou was born on October 21, 1927 in Peoria, Illinois to David and Helen (Price) McMaster. She graduated from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana in 1949, and later received a Masters Degree in Education from the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut. She married Richard Ackroyd Reeves in 1949, and raised three children, Linda Susanne, Hollis Anne and David Courtney Reeves.
Teaching and helping others was what Mary Lou was all about. Her teaching career spanned five decades, and she continued to teach up until a week before she passed away. She taught first grade in Connecticut, Erie, Pennsylvania, and in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. In 2003 Mary Lou moved to Simpsonville, SC and immediately began volunteering at the Greenville Literacy Association. To quote Harriet Withers, GLA Program Manager: “... she taught countless English as a Second Language students and also helped them navigate the new and sometimes bewildering world of an immigrant in the United States. She went above and beyond being just a tutor. She attended traffic court with them and translated letters. She also tutored their children, helping them to adjust to new schools and a new language and culture.”
She was preceded in death by her oldest daughter Linda Reeves Pettit. She will be lovingly remembered by her children: Hollis (Richard) Wilkes and David (Becky) Reeves; her sister, Susanne McMaster Fruehauf (Bud); six grandchildren: Sarah Pettit Drozdowicz (Tom), Robert Pettit (Sasha), Emily Reeves Pomrening (Erich), Andrew Reeves, Elizabeth Price Wilkes, Richard Garland Wilkes; and 3 great grandchildren: Ryan and Kyle Drozdowicz and Sophie Pettit.
The family gathered to celebrate Mary Lou (Gran) and to share the many stories of her strength, compassion, and generosity. She did not wish to have a memorial service, instead asking that donations be made to the Greenville Literacy Association at www.greenvilleliteracy.org .