Peet, Mary Ann

Mary Ann Peet

6/27/1922 - 5/21/2012

Surrounded by loving family members, Mary Ann Peet died peacefully at Silvercrest of Anamosa. She had requested a “green burial” and was buried in the Peet family's ancestral woods near Stone City.

Mary Ann was a serious, passionate painter, inspiring and mentoring young artists. She maintained a working studio, and a constant practice of painting and drawing in each of the many places where she lived. During her years in Lebanon, she taught art at the American University of Beirut and at the American Community School. Mary Ann's works have been exhibited in the United States as well as abroad, and her paintings and drawings are treasured in many private collections throughout the world.

A fearless and indefatigable woman of high adventure, she was a world traveler, a writer of poetry, and an avid appreciator of the finer things in life: food, friends, literature, as well as many art forms. Throughout her long life, she nurtured intense friendships with those around the world, cooking and entertaining people in her beautiful houses, and corresponding by letter writing. Her close friends became extended family.

Her religion was of central importance to her and she found great comfort in St Mark's Episcopal Church of Anamosa, where the Rev. Anne Moats Williams ministered.

Mary Ann was born on Corregidor in the Philippines to Dorothy (“Dodo”) Chalfant and John Harvey (“Dynamite”) Wilson, who died testing an Army Air Corps plane when Mary Ann was 2 years old. A third-generation Floridian, Mary Ann grew up in Orlando, Fla., and earned her B.A. in English at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla.

She then went to New York City, where she studied painting at the Art Students' League with Yasuo Kuniyoshi while working as a copy editor at Gimbel's. A Fulbright Fellowship took her to Paris, where she studied painting at the Sorbonne, after which she returned to New York, where she had met James Melvin Peet.

In 1951, Mary Ann and Mel were married. They decided to return to Mel's hometown in Iowa to farm and start a family. After several years, Florida beckoned, moving the family to Deland, where Mel taught at Stetson University and Mary Ann painted while bearing three more children.

1958 brought the offer of a teaching job at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, and the family moved again. There, the cultural complexity of the region and proximity of a plethora of art and architecture in Europe, too, fed Mary Ann's insatiable appetite.

The return to America came in 1970 and Mary Ann set up house and studio in Jefferson, Md., while Mel taught at Montgomery College. She loved the Maryland countryside and made exquisite paintings celebrating its beauty.

Mel retired in 1986, fueling a move back to Anamosa, where Mary Ann set up the house on Davis Street. After her beloved Mel's death in 2007, Will, her eldest, cared for her, both at home and later, through the difficulties of hospitalization and relocation. She found final comfort at Silvercrest of Anamosa, where she was blessed by particularly caring staff, as well as the loving presence of Will, his wife, Kris, and her daughter, Angela.

She was preceded in death by her husband, James Melvin Peet; and outlived by her children, James William Peet (Kris) of Anamosa, Anne Peet Carrington (Roger) of Novato, Calif., Mary-Minn Sirag (Saul-Paul) of Eugene, Ore., John Reichart Peet (Diane Gottsried) of New York, N.Y., and Robert Melvin Peet (Roland Gallahan) of Richmond, Va.; stepdaughter, Christina Winkler; grandson, Gideon Peet of Binghampton, N.Y.; and stepgrandchildren, Jamie Governale (Chrissy Campi), Will Winkler, Angela and Jared Parsons (Cami).

Mary Ann's family would like to express their profound gratitude toward the staff of Silvercrest and St. Luke's Hospice in Cedar Rapids for their loving care during the final years and days of her long life.

There will be an Open House on Monday, May 28, from 3 to 7 p.m. at 207 North Davis St., Anamosa, IA 52205.

Published May 26 and 27, 2012 in The Gazette