Mary Matthews Obituary

Mary Louise Matthews

May 2nd, 1917 (Cleveland, Ohio) to December 6th, 2024 (Tucson, Arizona)

Brothers J. Jefrey and Peter C. Matthews today announce the quiet passing of their mother, Mary Lou Matthews, at her home in Tucson, Arizona on December 6th, 2024, in her 108th year.

Always civic-minded Mary Lou, for her many years living in Delaware in the 1940s and 1950s, she was born Mary Louise Lemichuk in Cleveland to her Ukrainian immigrant parents, and attended Ohio Wesleyan, where she was a member of the Delta Gamma sorority; Mary Lou graduated from OWU with Honors and dual majors in Business and Education in 1939. She had been granted a full academic scholarship to Duke University, but she and her parents preferred her to stay in Ohio. At her freshman mixer, she met John Heil Matthews, born in Delaware, a Chi Phi she dated throughout her college years and to whom she was married on September 7th, 1940; it was that same day new husband, John, was notified he'd been granted a new car Oldsmobile franchise for Delaware. Originally living on Forest Avenue, she and John built a new home in the mid-1940s on Heffner Street for themselves and two sons, Jef and Peter, living there until moving to Arizona in 1959.

Known in Delaware for her strong and effective leadership as President of the Hospital Women's Auxiliary Board, she was credited decades ago with the then massive expansion of Delaware's current hospital. Her other many civic involvements included membership on the Delaware Children's Home Board.

A world traveler throughout her life, her first big trip abroad was at age seventeen in 1934 when she accompanied her father on a three-month long journey to visit his father, living in Ukraine. Visas for that trip could not be obtained in the USA at the time, so father and daughter had to travel to Berlin to acquire those visas. Mary Lou recalled it was a dangerous and harrowing experience traveling by train during that period in history. She wondered recently, if by chance, her grandfather's farmhouse might still be standing.

Once in Arizona, Mary Lou, as her friends have always known her, became active in The Heard Museum in Phoenix and The Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, studying and collecting Native American art and artifacts. Over the years, she attended many Native American events, mainly in Arizona and New Mexico.

Husband John died at their second home in Coronado, California on December 13th, 1997, and for all the subsequent years, Mary Lou lived alone with only occasional outside help in the home she and John built up in the Tucson foothills in 1963. An avid reader her entire life, she still, until very recently, read several books a week, fed her beloved wild birds, did daily crossword puzzles, and did accounting for family investment properties.

Her years in Delaware with her dear friends and family were always fondly remembered. She enjoyed reminiscing about their Saturday Night Crowd, composed of best friends from college and locals who met weekly for many, many years. Husbands and wives, they rotated homes, hosting 'the Crowd' about every nine or ten weeks; their children still speak of those they grew up to know as their own, as family. Mary Lou recalled many times when her husband, John, one day walked into Dick Firestone's law office saying, "Let's start another bank in Delaware." John was on the newly formed Delaware County Bank Board for decades, even after moving to Arizona. John was right there with Hank Thomson as The Little Brown Jug evolved and was prominent in many local community development processes in Delaware, Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tucson. John was an entrepreneur as well as a golfer, a skipper and a licensed pilot. All the industry that came to Delaware in the 1940s and 1950s was because John recruited them by flying around the country in his Ryan Navion aircraft and 'talking up' Delaware.

Remembrances may be donated to the John H. and Mary L. Matthews Memorial Scholarship at Ohio Wesleyan University; or, recognizing Mary Lou's familial ties to Ukraine, friends and family may wish to consider donations be made to support the Ukrainian people in their desperate fight today still in their war against Russia.