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Mary Rowe
EAST PRAIRIE, Mo. — Mary Alice Hurt Smith Rowe, nee Morgan, 91, passed away in Wichita, Kansas, on Sept. 9, 2023, after an extended illness.
Mary was born near East Prairie on June 21, 1932, the daughter of the late Albert "Doc" and Thelma Morgan, nee White, of rural East Prairie.
She was educated in the East Prairie school system from 1938 through 1950, graduating that year. In school, she met Stephen Boon Hurt, who would become her first husband. Popular in school, Mary was a majorette in the marching band, and she was Drum Major in her senior year; she was also a member of the girls’ basketball team. Mary and Steve were voted handsomest couple as high school seniors.
She lived almost all of her life in East Prairie except the years after her 1950 graduation from East Prairie High School when she worked for Southwestern Bell in St Louis prior to her marriage to Steve Hurt in 1952. After the marriage, she and Steve lived in Sunnyvale, California, during his US Navy service and where their first child, Richard Dane Hurt, was born in 1953.
The family returned to East Prairie 1954 after Steve’s discharge from the Navy. Both Mary and Steve were employed at the East Prairie Eagle there until prospects for an education called them to move to Huntsville, Texas. There, their second son, Mark Albert Hurt, was born in 1956. Mary was a homemaker and Steve was in the process of finishing his education at Sam Houston State Teachers’ College when the life together that she and Steve envisioned was cut tragically short from an automobile accident in 1957 during his senior year in college. This left Mary as a single parent to raise her two young sons with the help of her extended family in East Prairie.
Mary and her two small sons returned to East Prairie in 1957 where she was employed by the East Prairie Eagle newspaper and devoted herself to rearing her two sons. She remained at the East Prairie Eagle until her retirement in 1992. During that span of 35 years, she was a secretary, copy editor and met the public daily in the business operations of the office. She oversaw the transition of a newspaper office that produced virtually everything in house — linotypes, presses, and all kinds of machinery — to a quiet office where she was the only employee on site, the printing long moved to the offset process. Other than office work, she also owned a large number of rental properties in East Prairie, acquired over several years, which she continued as a side business until she moved to Kansas in 2020.
In those early years in the 1960s, she was active in the PTA, was a Cub Scout den mother for her boys and others, and enjoyed bowling with friends. She always enjoyed spending time with her extended family, especially her mother, in rural East Prairie.
Raised in the Methodist Church, she also attended the First Christian Church and the Church of God over the years.
In 1969 she married James F. Smith, a local farmer and carpenter, a widower with two sons, Lloyd and Eric. They remained married until his death in 1991. Three years later she married O. Clifford Rowe, a retired farmer and widower, remaining married until his death in 2016.
She was also preceded in death by brother, Charles "Buck" Morgan (Jo Emma) (d. 1979); sisters, Frances E. Watson (Gail Watson) (d. 2023), Alberta M. Bishop (Jim Bishop) (d. 2021) and Sandra K. Thresher (d. 2021). One brother, Randolph Elliott Morgan, died at birth (1942).
She is survived by two sisters, Danielle E. Cummins (the late Frankie Cummins) of Tustin, California, and Pamela Goolsby (Leo Goolsby) of Advance, Missouri. Surviving also are her sons, Dane Hurt (Becky) of Wichita and Mark Hurt (Susan) of Creve Coeur, Missouri. Two grandchildren, Elizabeth A. (Beth) Hurt (Jason Klein) of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Emily J. Hurt of Wichita also survive.
In 2020, due to declining health, Mary moved to Wichita to live with her son, Dane, and his wife, Becky. Mark, and his wife, Susan, were frequent visitors.
Family viewing will occur at the Nelson Memorial Methodist Church in East Prairie on Saturday, Sept. 16, 2023, at 10:30 a.m., with public viewing at 11:30 a.m., and with the funeral service at 1 pm. Rev. Beth Allen, Pastor, will officiate.
Interment will follow at the Dogwood Cemetery where she will be laid to rest next to her first husband, Stephen B. Hurt.
McMikle Funeral Home of Charleston, Missouri, is in charge of arrangements.
Online condolences may be shared at www.mcmiklefuneralhome.com.