Schrody, Mary Alice

Mary Alice Schrody, 96, of Clinton, Iowa, died Tuesday, April 27, 2010, at the Alverno Health Care Facility. A memorial service celebrating Mary Alice's life will be held at First United Methodist Church, Clinton, at 11 a.m. Wednesday, May 5. Urn burial will be in Springdale Cemetery, where Mary Alice will be buried with her husband, Leo. Snell-Zornig is assisting the family.

Mary Alice Schrody was born Nov. 14, 1913. She was the first of three daughters born to Alice McKercher Woolverton and Howard Lashley Woolverton. Mary Alice grew up in Cedar Falls, where she graduated from high school and later attended Iowa State Teachers College (now University of Northern Iowa), graduating with highest honors, earning a degree in English in 1934. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa honor society. She married Leo J. Schrody on Aug. 22, 1935. Leo was a schoolteacher, teaching in Newell and Wapello before settling in the early 1940s in Cedar Rapids, where he taught school at Wilson High School and then Jefferson High School. Mary Alice worked as a proof reader for the Cedar Rapids Gazette for 21 years. She was head proof reader at the Cedar Rapids Gazette during the transition years to computerization of proofing copy.

Leo and Mary Alice moved to Clinton in 1976 to be closer to their children. Mary Alice

was a member of First United Methodist Church, where she was involved in many church

activities. She taught adult Sunday school for many years. She was an active member of

a Clinton non-denominational Bible study group, presenting many of that group's

programs. She was a member of Hope Circle at First United Methodist Church.

In addition to being a biblical scholar, Mary Alice loved to cook for family gatherings. She

was a skilled seamstress, adept at knitting and crocheting, a voracious reader, an

accomplished photographer, a horticulturist, and in her later years she mastered the

computer doing biblical research and sending e-mails and photographs to family and

friends.

Mary Alice was preceded in death by her husband, Leo, who died in 1984; and her

youngest sister, Charlene AI-Ani, who died in Baghdad, Iraq.

Mary Alice is survived by a sister, Adela Thomas of Tucson, Ariz.; a daughter, Alice Lee Tjaden of Burlington; and a son, Dr. David W. Schrody of Clinton. She has five grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, two nieces and four nephews.

Memorials may be made to First United Methodist Church, Clinton.