Marie D. Rawson

Dovie Marie Rawson hated her first name from the day she was born, May 12, 1929 to the day she died, January 22, 2021. She refused to even respond if somebody used her first name. When God made Marie, there was more than a splash or dash of independence added, and it was a dangerous thing to cross her.

She was a ferocious basketball player, she wanted to be a brain surgeon before anyone even knew what that was, and she lied about her age to get a job at a bus station where she got engaged to some stranger who was very wealthy from Mexico, although in the end, decided not to go through with it and sent the ring back. When someone tried to assault her on a bus she bit his finger so hard he bled. She was a fighter, not a lover! She loved love stories though, or any story really, and had a voracious appetite for reading as well as hearing about the lives of others.

She was married to William Albert Rawson, Jr. for well over 60 years before he died in 2013. From their union they had 4 children, the eldest, Peggy, followed by the twins, Penny and Pam, and then Paul - the surprise ending.

She was a garage sale scout and would hunt down finds that she would later re-sell in order to pay for their glasses and dentist visits. She probably was the one who taught McGuyver how to be resourceful, because she could make clothes based on pictures from magazines and invented and cut the patterns out of newspaper. She made home remedies for any illness - unless there was gushing blood - she didn’t do blood. She made sure her children had perfect school attendance with the use of threatened enemas for tummy aches and she cooked everything from scratch, by hand! She made the most delicious food and chocolate chip cookies imaginable. Despite attempts to recreate her recipes, nobody has been able to imitate her cooking. In fact, witnesses claim she made a delicious meal out of cat food when she was in South America visiting her missionary daughter’s family. She did not know Spanish, but she knew pictures of the fish on the can and she knew the best way to cook fish! It wasn’t till her Spanish speaking son-in-law, Harold, saw the cans of cat food in the trash of their cat-less home, that the mistake was discovered.

She was a fantastic Sunday School teacher at Creston Hills Baptist Church and worked so many different jobs it would take too long to list them all here, but her heart was for helping people and she had a great sense of community. She spent her last years getting to know her neighbors through feeding them, helping build a welcoming committee at nursing homes she moved into, cheering up anyone who seemed sad or depressed and providing her own brand of “therapy” to the “old people” she happened to live around. There will never be a more hospitable, friendly, loving soul willing to fight for her rights and the rights of others in those homes again.

The best word to sum up her spirit would be ‘feisty’ and her 15 grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren, and 1 upcoming great-great grandchild will definitely be re-telling the stories of her brave life and the many hilarious antics she got herself into, or out of, whether it was just her imagination or actually happened, nobody will ever know.

Death itself didn’t dare take her just any old way that she didn’t want to go - she died exactly how she preferred - peacefully in her sleep, the fight finally over.

Everyone can count on being met by the most organized and cheerful welcoming committee ever when they eventually follow her to Heaven; she will make sure of that.