Mary Michieli Rollins

was 90 years of age. Widowed last year, Mary is survived by her son, Thomas M. Rollins, her daughterin-law, Victoria, and her grandchildren, Tom and Kay Rollins, all of McLean, Virginia. Her other son,

Theodore A. Rollins, pre-deceased her.

Mary, the third of four children, was born on January 4, 1931 in Logan County, Colorado, to Toby

Michieli of Casoni, Italy, and Carrie Bertapelle Michieli of Rosati, Missouri. She graduated from Loretto

Heights College with a B.S in Medical Technology, and was a registered member of the American Society

of Clinical Pathologists. She practiced in Colorado Springs until her marriage in 1954. Thereafter, she

devoted her prodigious energy to civic and philanthropic endeavors, raising her sons, and supporting

Texan artists.

Among other offices, Mary served on the Citizens Advisory Committee of the Houston Mass Transit

Authority, as the 1972 Canvassing Chair of the Republican Party for Harris County, and as President of

the Friends of the Houston Public Library.

Mary was married for 66 years to Thomas W. Rollins, an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and

executive in the oil and gas industry. Together, they lived in Panama, Denver, various hydrocarbonbearing places in Texas and Louisiana (where she was the runner-up in the Mrs. Louisiana competition),

Manhattan, and The Hague, Netherlands. Mary and Tom settled for most of their adult lives in Houston

on their fourth and final move to that city. Over four years ago, Mary and Tom moved from Houston to

Washington, D.C. to be near their son and his family in their senior years.

Mary loved the arts, dressed beautifully, comforted many by healing through means of faith, practiced

her Catholicism non-doctrinally, and, it must be said, never much cared for the company of dogs.

Mary’s funeral mass will be said by her brother, Deacon Ronald Michieli on August 14, at St. Anthony’s

Church in Sterling, Colorado. Thereafter, her ashes will be interred on the shores of Flathead Lake,

Montana, next to those of her husband, Tom, and their son, Ted, overlooking the lake and the Mission

Mountain Range of the Montana Rockies.

Condolences may be sent to Thomas M. Rollins, 1101 Langley Lane, McLean, Virginia 22101. In lieu of

flowers, donations may be sent to The Department of Art and Art History, The University of Texas at

Austin, https://art.utexas.edu/support.