Mary Louise Lawson

Mary Louise Lawson, 88, died at home in Columbia, Maryland, on December 16, 2025.

Mary was born in 1937 in Ontonagon, Michigan, to Fannie Johnson and Francis Victor Johnson. She liked to joke about the $1 prize her mom won after entering her photo in a "Prettiest Baby" contest. The family soon moved to Portland, Oregon, where Mary's dad was a boilermaker and union leader. Mary remembers her mom making lunches for men in need when they lived near the train tracks.

As a senior at Grant High School, Mary met the love of her life, Roger Lawson, while they served as co-editors of the yearbook. She and Roger went to Whitman College and eventually transferred to Oregon State University, where they both earned their bachelor's degrees in botany. After Roger earned his PhD and received a Fulbright scholarship, they lived in the Netherlands together for a year. Their second-floor apartment was so cold upon arrival that Roger bought a load of wooden hangers to burn in the wood stove, making the couple a curiosity among neighbors.

After Roger got a job at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, they moved to Maryland and soon settled in Bowie. When Roger invited colleagues and international visitors over for dinner, Mary liked to make recipes from her Sunset Magazine Dinner Party Cookbook, published in 1962. Her favorite was a paprika-spiced chicken dish in butter sauce with cheesy egg noodles. Perhaps the only thing she liked more was her potato salad, with celery seed as the secret ingredient; she refused to suffer any other potato salads, which she found vastly inferior.

Mary and Roger had three children, Jeff, Janet, and Nancy. They created extensive gardens around their home and a little woodland in the backyard where the kids made mud pies and played under the trees. Mary hated weeding but loved Roger's careful flower-tending, especially the pink and purple azaleas that lit up the yard in the spring. In winter, Mary bundled up her charges during snowstorms so they could sled down the steep road with their friends; in summer, she and Roger let them play kickball in the street with neighbors until the sun went down and the streetlights came on.

Mary drove them to music lessons, the pool, the mall, Boy Scouts, Bluebirds, and friends' houses, even though she was afraid to drive. She and Roger also took their kids on many trips in their pop-up camper-locally, at Catoctin Mountain Park, and across the country to visit the grandparents. They stopped at national parks and landmarks along the way, drinking the Tang, deviled ham sandwiches, and Chips Ahoy that Mary had packed.

A talented seamstress since the lean years of childhood when she made her own clothes, Mary dressed her daughters in style. She took them to Jo-Ann Fabric at Free State Mall to search through pattern books and pick out beautiful materials. She made doll dresses and prom dresses, skirts and suits, knickers and culottes and anything her daughters felt was all the rage at the moment. The only thing she refused to countenance were parachute pants.

Mary was especially proud of her son's talent for playing the cello and his solo appearance one year with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. She also encouraged practical pursuits, advising her daughters to take typing and Latin in high school because both would help them in their writing and their careers. She loved all animals but particularly dogs, and honored the memory throughout her life of all the dogs she'd known and loved: Blaze, Inca, Giga, Tasha, Tigger, Lucky, Beau, Rusty, and Rascal.

An avid reader with a penchant for mysteries and crime novels, Mary instilled more grammar rules in her kids than any of their teachers. She gave them easy tips for remembering the proper use of "I" and "me" as subjects and objects, for example, and she never let an opportunity to correct them pass. Mary was sometimes short on compliments and long on opinions, but if she told you she liked something, you knew she meant it.

Mary was a grandmother of four: Kevin, Jeremy, Elise and Ryan. She and Roger helped care for Elise and Ryan as they grew up, bringing them to school and making crafts with them. Under Mary's influence, Elise honed her natural sassiness, ensuring the endurance of this family trait for future generations.

Mary filled photo albums and scrapbooks with photos and mementos of her travels to Europe, Central America, and Australia with Roger. She loved to do crossword puzzles and other word games, often making a bowl of popcorn and settling in front of the TV with her games and novels at night. In her later years she did the New York Times crossword every morning with Jeff and her daughter-in-law, India.

Mary was preceded in death by Roger, Ryan, her sister, Sharon, and her brother, Donald. Her family is very grateful to the caregivers who helped her during her final years, especially Ola, who became a close friend. Mary is also survived by her brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Russell and Bette Lawson, and her sons-in-law Jeff Crouch and Will Heinz. A celebration of life will be organized at a later date.