Mary Lois Koontz

Mary Lois (Sheets) Koontz

Cordova, TN

Mary Lois (Sheets) Koontz of Cordova, Tennessee, 88, mother, grandmother, teacher, scuba diver, and businesswoman, would like the world to know her job is done and she didn't leave anything on the table. Life was a moveable feast and she ate it all. After doing so, she received an offer she couldn't refuse and took it.

Her new position comes with an enviable sign-on bonus: she will reunite with family, friends and pets whom she hasn't seen in way too long; notably her parents, Jacob Paul Sheets and Ann Catherine Sheets (Baurle), her sisters, Helen Walter, Mildred Meyers, Lucille Jay, Arlene Yeck, Geraldine "Gerry" Dettloff, Charlotte Parros and Marjorie "Marge" Sheets as well as her brothers Charles "Chuck" Sheets and Harold "Pete" Sheets.

In her new role, she will be shuffling off this mortal coil, catching up with those who preceded her, laughing, entertaining, reading and overseeing the lives of family and friends she leaves behind.

While she will always be proud of her only son, Mark Timothy, the trial lawyer, she doesn't always approve of his clients, especially those coal executives charged with polluting our air and waters who caused her to frequently lament as to why her son just couldn't go back to representing accused murderers and bank robbers.

Mary leaves behind strict guidance for her grandchildren, Jordan Rebecca Napier (Charlie) and Joshua Michael Koontz, to continue their teaching careers with dedication and compassion and expects strict adherence to those instructions. She follows a long family tradition of employment in the world's most important profession, teaching. She expects her grandchildren to maintain the same dedication and compassion towards their students that underscored her own 27 years of teaching 2nd and 5th graders at Mercer Elementary School in the Shaker Heights, Ohio School System. Her students went on to become, among their many professions, Fortune 500 CEOs, doctors, lawyers, writers, stockbrokers, journey men and women and most importantly, teachers. They all remembered her. She is proud of all of them, even if she can't remember their names when they say "Hello, Mrs. Koontz" to her many decades after they graduated from her class.

Mary expects Jordan, a French, Government and Cinema teacher at Hillsboro High School in Nashville Tennessee, to go the extra mile for her students, especially the troubled ones, and to be guided by her favorite maxim: "If you change one child's life, you have changed the world."

She is also very proud of her grandson Joshua, a gifted linguist, who is a part time instructor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a full time Middle East Analyst in Washington, DC. She expects him to encourage those he teaches to push beyond the boundaries of their perceived talents and potential to new highs, as she did with him.

In her new position, Mary will continue to be an independent woman. She takes political advice from no one and will always be generous about giving it. That will not change as she oversees and watches out for those she leaves behind.

Mary wants the world to know that you don't have to do the same thing your entire life, even if you're good at it. Change is good. After being born and living as a northerner for half of her life, Mary retired from 27 years of teaching, moved to Memphis, Tennessee and became a southerner. She also became a certified scuba diver and dove the wrecks along the south Florida Coast and dropped in the deep holes of Crystal River near Ginny Springs, Florida. Her son Timothy frequently joined her in these diving trips. Mary also started a Shaklee business in the second half of her life because she believed in their products and in her words, they "improved and maintained my health and well-being until the ripe young age of 88." She took her Shaklee supplements daily and used the Shaklee Eco-friendly cleaning products exclusively. She was active and healthy until her departure to her new position. When she returned home for hospice care after a brief hospitalization, she insisted that her friend and housekeeper, Maria, use Shaklee cleaning products exclusively in her absence and upon her return, because, as she said: "I don't want those poisonous commercial cleaners to get sucked into my air conditioning system and kill me when I come home." Her Shaklee business will continue under her friends, family and Mary's remote supervision with the new name of "Mary's Angels."

Even though it's time to go, Mary loves Memphis, especially the friends she leaves behind here. Saralynn Turner has always been the older daughter she never had. Susan Huston was the middle child she never had. Amy Barnes was the youngest daughter she never had. All of these strong, independent women were cut from the same cloth as Mary and she loves them and their families dearly. She also leaves behind many friends who enriched her life, as she, in her opinion, did theirs. She would also like to give a big "shout-out" to the best Hospice nurse of all time, Alicia Elder of Baptist Trinity Hospice Care, who made her laugh uproariously in tough times and did so with style and grace.

Mary is sorry to be leaving but she does so with great memories. She will never forget the smell of her mother's cherry and apple pies baking in the kitchen oven at the family farm in Monroe, Michigan where she grew up with her nine brothers and sisters. She will always have fond memories of those Fall days on the family acreage when she accompanied her father as he hunted pheasant with his single-barrel .12 gauge.

She has thoroughly enjoyed her lifelong pursuit of education, especially being graduated from St. Mary's Academy, in Monroe, Michigan in 1948, the University of Toledo with a BA Education in 1952 and John Carroll University where she received her MA in 1977. Mary intends to continue her education in her new location inasmuch as she opines that you can never know too much, even though she told anyone who listened that she knows it all.

Mary is weary of reading obituaries noting someone's courageous battle with this or that. She wants it known that she passed as a result of being stubborn, refusing to follow doctors' orders and pushing the conventional wisdom envelope for almost nine decades. She enjoys a good, dry Beefeater Gin Martini, a great prime steak and loaded baked potato, cold white wine, telling inappropriate jokes in mixed company, liberal politics and not suffering fools easily. She plans to continue those habits in the next chapter. Thank you, that is all.