Madeleine Forsman McIntyre

June 13, 1914 - September 3, 2009

Madeleine Forsman McIntyre, 95, of Bryan, passed away on Thursday, September 3, 2009, in Austin.

Visitation will be from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, September 5, at Hillier Funeral Home.

Funeral services are set for 11 a.m. Monday, September 7, 2009, at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 3333 Oak Ridge Drive in Bryan, Texas. Burial will follow the funeral service on Monday at Bryan City Cemetery.

Madeleine Forsman McIntyre was born in Toreboda, Sweden, as Magdalena Ruth Agnes Forsman. She and her parents immigrated to the United States when she was 8 years old. Not knowing any English, she entered the public schools in New Haven, Connecticut and soon decided to change her name from Magdalena to Madeleine.

Her father and mother were caretaker and cook living in the basement of a large house on the edge of the Yale University campus. Madeleine studied with other immigrant, high school classmates such as, Walter Rostow who later became National Security Adviser for President Lyndon Johnson.

The center of life for Madeleine's family was the Swedish Covenant Church and Madeleine's firm Christian faith was encapsulated in the songs she learned there as a child.

Although Madeleine's father wanted her to learn a secretarial skill after high school, her mother insisted that she attend the Swedish Covenant two-year North Park College in Chicago. Madeleine then completed her college education at Wheaton College two years before Billy Graham.

The following year she earned the diploma, Civilisation de francaise, from the Sorbonne in Paris, France. Upon her return to the United States she earned a Master of Arts degree in French at Middlebury College in Vermont.

Madeleine returned to North Park to teach in the Academy and later accepted a position to teach French and English in Princeton High School in New Jersey. There she met her future husband, Jack, who was a graduate student at Princeton University. They were married in 1947.

In 1950, Madeleine and Jack moved to Stanford, California and in 1952 Madeleine traveled to Sweden to adopt a 3-month old boy, John. In 1957, the family moved to New Haven, Connecticut where Jack taught at Yale University. An opportunity for Jack to head research at the new Cyclotron Institute at Texas A&M brought the family to Bryan in 1963 where they have remained until the present.

In a way, Madeleine never outgrew the shy little girl from Sweden who lived in the servants-quarters in the large house on the edge of the Yale campus. She enjoyed the seclusion of writing and painting. She wrote articles for the Houston Post and the Seattle Times. One of the Post articles, "Russians and Texans are a Lot Alike", was written after a trip to the USSR. She noted that the vanishing horizon makes everything big in both Texas and Russia. The Russians had the biggest railway cars and the biggest atom smasher, not to mention the biggest rockets to support their race to the moon.

The walls of Madeleine's home are covered with her paintings. She had become a true Texan with many paintings of bluebonnets. She also painted the Yegua Valley before Lake Sommerville filled it up.

Madeleine never forgot her Swedish heritage. She participated in San Antonio's first International Festival and later supervised the Scandinavian booth at the Bryan People's Festival in Manor East Mall. She also served for two years as President of the Friends of the Bryan Library.

In 1979 Madeleine and her husband became charter members of the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Bryan, which preached the simple Christian message of her youth. And, like the Swedish Covenant Church in New Haven, Westminster Church became the center of her life.

During her final years Madeleine displayed her Christian faith by cheerfully accepting serious losses of eyesight, hearing, and walking. Madeleine was an inspiration to her family, friends and to all who knew her, she will be missed deeply.

Survivors include her husband, John Armin McIntyre; son, John Forsman McIntyre and his wife, Claire; grandchildren, Nicholas and wife, Courtney McIntyre, Nicole and husband, Whitney Shine; and great-grandson, Carter Shine; great-granddaughter expected in December, Madeleine Shine, name sake to Maddy.

Memorials may be made to Westminster Presbyterian Church, 3333 Oak Ridge Drive, Bryan, TX 77802.

Please view and sign the guestbook at www.hillierfuneralhome.com.