Mary K. Hessler M’96 P’94

Source: https://www.cremationsocietycc.com/obituaries/Mary-K-Hessler?obId=46890378

Mary Katherine Hessler, known to most as Kathy, daughter of Jack and Eileen MacMichael, was born in Highland Park, Michigan, a smaller city surrounded by Detroit. Her formative years were spent in various Detroit neighborhoods with her parents and siblings Robert, Beth, Sisty, and Sue and numerous cousins. Following high school, she enrolled in Eastern Michigan University, earning her Bachelor of Education degree. During her senior year, she met Arthur, whom she would marry in December of 1966 in Southfield, Michigan.

She moved to Vermont the next spring to join Arthur who had relocated there to continue his graduate education at the University of Vermont. She secured a teaching position at Edmunds Middle School in the Burlington School District, where she remained until she and Arthur were blessed with the birth of daughter Amy and son John. She left her teaching position to spend more time with the children and sometimes referred to these years as among her favorites.

When she returned to teaching, it was at the Elizabeth Lund Home, a short walk from their home, a position that allowed her the flexibility to be available for her children. Some years later, following a short stint at Rice Memorial High School, she began teaching at what was called by some the 4Cs, a correctional facility in South Burlington. She very much enjoyed working with the incarcerated population and took it upon herself to look into new ways of assessing the basic skills of adult learners. When working on a Masters Degree in Education, she elected to focus on the development of strategies for providing high literacy instruction to incarcerated people.

When they moved to Virginia in 1998, she very quickly joined the teaching staff at a juvenile detention facility in Staunton where she remained until her retirement. Arthur retired from his college position a year later and they returned to Vermont to be closer to family, including three grandchildren, Joshua, Katie, and Jackson. Kathy was very proud of them and their parents. Approaching their 59th anniversary, Kathy summed it up clearly to Arthur: “We have enjoyed a very good life together.”