Mary Diana Fulghum

October 3, 1940 - February 2, 2016

Diana was born the only child to Hugh Forrest Jackson and Nannie Loftin Davis on October 3, 1940 in Goldsboro, North Carolina. In 1958, she graduated from Goldsboro High School as a member of the National Honor Society. Diana met her life long love and future husband, Robert Daniel Fulghum that summer at the Cliffs of the Neuse Park near Seven Springs, North Carolina where he was working as a life guard.

Diana attended the Women's College of the University of North Carolina and was active in the lunch counter sit-in movement in the spring of 1960. Later that year she transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she graduated in 1962 with a BA in Education. On her graduation day, she flew to Europe to marry her sweetheart Bob in Bern, Switzerland on June 27, 1962, and they lived in Germany for several years while he was in the Air Force. Diana worked at the University of Maryland European Campus in Frankfurt, and they traveled throughout Germany, Italy, Austria and France in their free time. She was in Paris when John Kennedy was assassinated.

Settling in the Washington DC area, Diana began her teaching career in earnest concentrating on sixth grade. After ten years in the classroom, she obtained her Masters Degree in Library Science from the University of Maryland and continued in education as an elementary school media specialist for another twenty years. She was a member of the Alpha Delta Kappa Honor Society, and when she retired from education in 1998, she received the "Excellence in Education" Award along with recognition by the Maryland General Assembly and the US Senate and House of Representatives.

A breast cancer survivor, Diana was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease at age 58. She was an advocate for and participant in many research studies and clinical trials related to the disease. In 2004, she became the recipient of a deep brain stimulator. She was not afraid to blaze the trail for others. She took her interest in Parkinson's with her when she moved to Alexandria and helped to establish a weekly Parkinson's dance class there. When she died in Alexandria on February 2, 2016 she donated her brain to Johns Hopkins Medical Institute for research toward a Parkinson's cure.

In her free time, Diana enjoyed travel, reading and art and had a special affinity for jokes, games and puzzles. She had a magnificent sense of style and fashion. She loved drawing and painting from an early age, producing art in charcoal, watercolor, acrylics and oils. She was a voracious reader with a preference for mystery novels, which she enjoyed during twenty-five summers spent at her place on the beach in Ocean City, Maryland. Her family and especially her grandchildren were her most wonderful pride and joy.

Diana is survived by her son Christopher Gray Fulghum, his wife Talley, and their daughter Parker of Alexandria; her daughter Kimberly Erin Kratovil, husband Frank and their children Frank, Jackson, Cole, Nathaniel and Ayden of Stevensville, Maryland; and her only cousin, William Faulkner and his wife Sheila of Falls Church, Virginia.

A memorial service is planned for Diana on Saturday, February 13, 2016 at 1:00 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 228 South Pitt Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22314.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you please consider a gift towards finding a cure for Parkinson's Disease made by charitable donation to:

Johns Hopkins University

c/o Fund for Johns Hopkins Medicine

‪550 North Broadway, 7th Floor‬‬‬‬‬

Baltimore, MD 21205 ‬

‬

* Checks should be made out to Johns Hopkins University, PDMD Center

** Please include a note indicating the donation is in memory of Diana Fulghum to benefit the Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorder (PDMD) Center in the Department of Neurology.