Mary Fite Holbrook

Mary Ann Fite Holbrook, wife of former Galveston County Judge Ray Holbrook, went to be with the Lord on Saturday morning, August 24th, following a brief illness.

Funeral services are scheduled for 2:00 p.m., Friday, August 30,  2019 at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Lake Road in La Marque.  Interment will follow at Galveston County Memorial Park.  Immediately afterward A reception for friends and family will be held in the parish hall at St. Michael’s. Visitation will be held 5:00 – 7:00 p.m., Thursday, August 29, 2019 at Emken-Linton Funeral Home in Texas City.

Mary Ann was born September 25, 1929 in Kerens, Texas and graduated from East Texas State Teachers College, now known as Texas A&M in Commerce.  She taught at Henderson County Junior College in Athens and Winnsboro High School before coming to Texas City in the fall of 1951 to teach fifth grade at Heights Elementary School.

Here she met her future husband, Ray, a chemical engineer at Monsanto Chemical Company.  Shortly after their marriage she took a ten-year hiatus from teaching to be a full-time mother to their three children before returning to the classroom at Kohfelt Elementary.  Soon after Ray was elected County Judge of Galveston County in 1966, Mary Ann retired permanently to join him in the busy whirl of politics, which lasted twenty-eight years until his retirement in 1995.

Mary Ann was also active in Beta Sigma Phi Sorority, the League of Women Voters, Church Women United, the Galveston County Historical Survey Committee and the Texas City Historical Commission as well as school and sports affairs of her children.  The family attended St. George’s Episcopal Church in Texas City, where Mary Ann taught Sunday school and served on the vestry and as senior warden.  She was active in the local Episcopal Church Women activities and served on the ECW Diocesan Board for four years.

She worked for H&R Block for fifteen years as a tax preparer, instructor and office manager at the Texas City and Santa Fe offices.

After the children left home, the Holbrook’s sold their historic old Colonel Moore home on Bay Street and moved to a rural area near Santa Fe.  Since that time, they have been active parishioners of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in La Marque where Mary Ann participated in ECW activities, served as leader of a Women’s Bible Study and served on the Prayer Team and in the Music Ministry. She and Ray were long time teachers of Bethel Bible classes at St. Michael’s and later held a bible study in their home.

In recent years Mary Ann’s interests had also turned to writing.  She was instructor of the Lifestory Writing class at College of the Mainland for two years and was a member of the Lifestory Writing class at Alvin Community College for 20 years.  She was formerly a member of the Bay Area Writers League and the Pasadena Christian Writers Alive!  Several of her stories and articles have been published.

Her interest in genealogy led to her membership in Daughters of the American Revolution.  She was also active, for more than twenty years, in the annual homecoming activities in her hometown of Kerens and wrote an annual newsletter for her class of 1946.

Mary Ann was preceded in death by her parents, Jack and Fannie Mae Fite, and her teenage sister, Laurelle, of Kerens and Athens.

She is survived by Ray, her husband of 65 years; son, Dr. C. Ray (Sonny) Holbrook III and wife, Jeanine, of Kansas City; daughter, Lauren Spalding and husband, Terry, of League City; and daughter, Lee Ann Postma and husband, Bruce, of Bryan.  Special joys of her life have been her ten grandchildren, Jack, Jessie, and Dustin and wife, Juliet Holbrook and Jacob, Rachel, Sarah and husband, Sam Best, Caleb and wife, Hannah, Halle, Faith and Joshua Postma and two great grandsons, Jude and Hudson Best.

Memorials may be made to St. George’s Episcopal Church in Texas City or St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in La Marque.