Dallas Episcopal school founder Mary Loving Blair remembered as passionate teacher, Cowboys fan
Episcopal News Service. June 25, 2010 [062510-04]
ENS staff
Friends and family remembered Mary Loving Blair as a passionate teacher at a June 24 memorial service at the Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration in Dallas, where in 1972 she founded the Parish Day School.
Four years after she started the school for preschoolers through fourth graders it had expanded through the 12th grade and changed its name to the Parish Episcopal School of Dallas.
Blair, 92, died June 19 of lung cancer.
"I don't know that I ever met anyone who loved young children more than Mary Blair," said Gloria Snyder, who followed Blair as headmistress and served from 1980 to 2009.
"She was a perfect person to start a school. She was very cost-conscious and also had quite an understanding and appreciation of institutional history," Snyder added. She said that Blair kept meticulous files, recording "any gift anyone ever donated to the school, even if you came to substitute teach and didn't accept the pay, she recorded it."
Snyder said that Blair was also an avid Dallas Cowboys fan whose sharp memory made her "a fabulous bridge player" but had suffered several falls in recent years, including a hip fracture.
"She was just a delightful, alert, wonderful lady, the kind that you always enjoyed being around," she added.
Born Nov. 12, 1917 in Jermyn, Texas, to a pioneer ranching family, she was the great-granddaughter of Oliver Loving, the cattleman who blazed the Goodnight-Loving Trail with Charles Goodnight in 1866.
After graduation from Southern Methodist University, she taught elementary school in Dublin, Corpus Christi and Graham, Texas before moving to Dallas in the 1950s.
She was married to William Blair, a founding Church of the Transfiguration member. He preceded her in death, as did a son, Bill.
She also taught at a non-church-sponsored school that rented space at the church. One Sunday, the church's leadership decided to found a private school and invited Blair to lead it.
Survivors include two sons, Bob and Bert, a daughter Laura Blair of Dallas, seven grandchildren and one great-grandson.
Memorials may be made to The Mary Loving Blair Scholarship Fund at the Parish Episcopal School, 4101 Sigma Drive, Dallas, Texas 75244; or the Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration, 14115 Hillcrest Road, Dallas, Texas 75354.