Palestine High School Alumni Association

Mary Janette Rogers Speegle

09 / 07 / 1922  –  09 / 24 / 2004

“She is all Jack’s fancy painted her, She is lovely, she is divine.”

Services for Mary J. Speegle, 82, of Richardson will be at 3 p.m. today at Bailey & Foster Chapel, Palestine with the Rev. Scott Dornbush officiating. Burial will follow in the family plot at Palestine City Cemetery.

Mrs. Speegle passed away peacefully at her home in Richardson. She was born September 7, 1922 in Palestine to Walter Goodvin Rogers and Una Jane Lewis Rogers.

Mrs. Speegle graduated from Palestine High School and attended Southwestern University in Georgetown. She married Lt. Johnny Wilson Patterson, pilot, in 1943 and gave birth to a daughter, Una Jane Patterson Speegle Carpenter.

Following his death in World War II she worked for Anderson County. She married her husband of 53 years, Cpt. Charles P. Speegle, a World War II veteran pilot, also of Palestine in 1946, and had two daughters, Olivia Miller Snapp and Doris Janette Perry. They raised their family in Tyler and Richardson.

Mrs. Speegle had a distinguished career in the oil industry, working as a lease analyst and retiring from Ensearch Exploration Corporation in 1987. She was a member of the First United Methodist Church of Richardson.

Mrs. Speegle was preceded in death by her husband, Charles P. Speegle; her youngest daughter, Doris Janette Speegle Perry; her parents, Walter Goodvin Rogers Sr. and Una Jane Lewis Rogers; and her brother, Walter Goodvin Rogers Jr.

She is survived by daughters, Una Jane Carpenter and husband Bobby; Olivia Snapp and husband Dr. Matthew Snapp; grandchildren, Mary Jane Carpenter Foster, John Carpenter, Richy Carpenter, Donovan C. Miller Jr., Dawn Miller Jabour, Kristina Perry and Christopher Perry; and great-grandchildren, Samantha Jabour, Hunter, Abby, Jane and Austin Foster, Corley and Koy Carpenter. She is also survived by a special aunt and best friend or 82 years Fay Lewis Paxton of Elkhart; and sister-in-law Doris Rogers of Tyler.

Pallbearers will be Dr. Matthew Snapp, Bobby Carpenter, Donovan Miller Jr., John Carpenter, Richy Carpenter, and Christopher Perry.

Honorary pallbearers will be Augustine Sanchez, Dr. Ed Gilbert, Dr. Marcus Spurlock, Vonda Freeman and Ron Hanna.

Source: Palestine Herald-Press 09-25-2004