Mary Weaver

Mary Moore Weaver of Harper, Texas passed away the morning of September 19, 2021. She was born in San Saba, Texas to Raney Earl (R.E.) Moore and Nan D. Sullivan, on December 27, 1921. Mary was one of the four daughters and one son who lived in many places throughout Texas during the Depression, before settling in Junction, Texas where she worked as a telephone operator and later graduated from Junction High School. With the advent of WWII, she left Texas and joined the Army Air Corps as a radio communications specialist. Tired of working in cramped conditions inside airplanes fixing radios, she became one of the first women Air Traffic Controllers (ATC's). While working in the tower, she met her husband, Frederick Weaver, a former ''barnstormer'' then head Instructor Pilot at Napier Field, Alabama. He was one of the first pilots in the United States, not unsurprisingly since he had lived in Dayton, Ohio four blocks away from Orville Wright. A female in the tower was a novelty, for the hundreds of WWII fighter pilots who were trained there before deploying to Europe and the Pacific theaters. After WWII they married, Mary had one son, Frederick Weaver, Jr. and accompanied her husband, Colonel Frederick Weaver, over a 34 plus year career in the Air Force in Europe, the Pacific and in the United States. Building on a degree from San Angelo State University, she received a Master's Degree from Ohio State while living at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. She added to this with a second Master's Degree from George Washington University. Mary then was a high school teacher in Washington DC, where she was active in the Union, the American Banking Association, American Bonsai Association, etc. and other organizations. Mary was an avid gardener, like many in the Depression through necessity and later through living in the Far East had developed an expertise in Japanese gardening. While Mary was a high school teacher, her husband worked in civil service, until both retired and returned to Junction, Texas to raise goats. After her husband died in 1993, Mary moved briefly to Kerrville, before settling in Harper, Texas again raising goats, cows, and sheep for the next 25 years. In between ranching, she supported the Harper Library, enjoyed traveling with her with son overseas in addition to taking trips on her own. She was preceded by her brother, R.E. Moore; sisters, Nan Felps, Mimi Coleman, and Patsy Turpen. The survivor is her son, Frederick Weaver, Jr. who had graduated from the United States Military Academy, retired from the Army, and is working for a Government Agency. Per her wishes, she will be cremated and her ashes spread in the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia. The family extends its sincere thanks to the nurses of Alamo Hospice (Pam McGough and Liz Montoya).