Mignonette Sally-Ann Vossler

Mignonette Sally-Ann Fiber was born on September 19th, 1935 to Clarence “Roxy” Fiber and Irene Mercier Fiber in Ogdensberg, New York, a place that, according to legend, Irene had chosen by throwing a dart at a map. The hospital nurses immediately gave her the name, Mimi, because Mignonette was too difficult to pronounce. She has been Mimi ever since. As soon as her mom could travel after delivering the baby, Mimi was on the road with her parents, living in a trailer and travelling with the circus through Canada, all over the United States and in Mexico. It was this experience of travel, wonderment, adventure, entertainment and of large, boisterous crowds that shaped the way that Mimi approached the world for the rest of her life.

When the circus took its winter break, Mimi and her family would drive the trailer to Port Aransas on the Gulf Coast and spend the winter months fishing and enjoying the sunshine. It was there that she gained her love of the sea and fishing, a passion that brought many great stories and great memories, and the fishing tradition that she passed down to her children.

The family settled down in Houston after Mimi started school, and Mimi welcomed her two younger sisters, Elaine and Roxene. Mimi spent her Junior High years at a boarding school in New Hampshire, where she learned French, crochet, knitting, needlepoint, as well as independence and resilience in addition to the normal studies. With her extended family in Connecticut and her parents almost two thousand miles away in Houston, she would ride the train back to Connecticut for holidays or the plane to Houston at year-end. On shorter breaks, she would stay in the dorm with the nuns and practice her handiwork.

She returned to Houston for high school and attended St. Agnes Academy, where she graduated in 1953. Mimi remained in touch with the St. Agnes Alumni group and recently celebrated her 70th high school class reunion. It was at a dance sponsored by St. Agnes High School that she met the man that would become her husband and father of her ten children, Lawrence Jerome Vossler (Larry).

Mimi and Larry were married in the summer of 1954 and began their family right away, welcoming Mike (1955), Gary (1956), Mark (1957), Kurt (1959), Alan (1960), Kathleen (1962), Susan (1963), Karl (1965), Sharon (1968) and Joseph (1970). She devoted herself to raising her children and became a master at finding ways to keep them entertained and active on a budget, all while exposing them to different things. The zoo, the beach, the Miller Outdoor Theatre, the library, the museums, the parks were all free. The drive-in movie theatre cost a dollar a carload, and she would bring homemade popcorn and a pitcher of Kool-aid so that the entire cost was $1.00. It was never enough that she had ten kids of her own to bring. She would load up the station wagon with neighborhood kids and friends of her kids and the occasional dog or two. There was always room for one more. She would just assign someone the role of ‘counting heads’ to make sure that nobody had been left behind.

She loved the outdoors. She loved camping and canoeing and fishing and swimming. Family vacations always involved a tent, a campfire and nature. Decades later, these memories of camping trips and beach outings and spending time with her children still brought her immense joy, and she would bring them up often. She loved having a large family and as her children grew up and married and had children of their own, she took her grandchildren camping and taught them to love the outdoors.

Mimi loved art and was very creative. She drew, painted, did macrame’. When her mother left her a room full of yarn, she picked back up her crochet hook and started making afghans. She made one for each child, their spouses, their children, and many of her great-grandchildren, still creating in her mid-eighties.

She loved to make people happy. She attended clown school and graduated in 1997. Her clown name was Miss Fishie, and she would volunteer at church bazaars and in the hospitals. She competed in clown competitions and walked in parades in downtown Houston. She loved the crowds, and she loved dressing up in costume and reliving some of her childhood.

Mimi loved a party and would show up every time, for every graduation, wedding, shower, birthday party, baptism, dance, celebration, play, holiday, sporting event, picnic or just dinner. If there was a gathering, you could always count on her arriving early and staying for the duration, no matter how far she had to drive to get there, no matter what else she had to do. She always supported her family’s milestones and loved being a part of it.

She loved hosting groups at her house as well. If she had one family coming over, she would invite more families to join. The more, the merrier. She enjoyed cooking for a big crowd and she loved the hustle and bustle of a full house, a big meal, a crowded table, lively conversation.

She attended Christ the Good Shepherd Catholic church for many years and was a part of their 55+ group. With them, she helped with the bazaar, enjoyed Game Nights, was part of a Dinner Club group and went on bus trips.

As she grew older and could no longer live at home alone, she came to live with her oldest daughter, Kathy. She remained active and loved to garden. She particularly loved growing flowers and helped to transform Kathy’s yard into a beautiful escape. She was an avid Astros fan and enjoyed getting dressed up and going to the games. She liked watching the games at sports bars and enjoyed the attention she would get when she came in wearing her shiny red hat.

And she liked her hats. She attended The Amazing Place day program, where she became known for her large assortment of hats, her sense of style and her outgoing personality.

Mimi was healthy for most of her life. She took ill in late December, 2023, when she went from a hospital stay to a rehab facility to her daughter, Sharon’s home for hospice care and ultimately to her daughter, Susan’s home. Through her illness, she was surrounded by loving family. She was content and comfortable. She was at peace and confident. She kept her positive attitude and her sense of humor to the end. She enjoyed the many visits from her family and friends and on February 15, 2024 she went home to Our Lord. She was preceded in death by her sons, Alan and Mike and her grandson, Michael and three great-grandchildren, Taylor, Evan and Jordan.