Talented artist, elegant lady, the epitome of southern charm, and the list goes on. While a person can do quite a few things over 92 years on this earth, Mary Lou Klotzman never stopped being interested in what life had to offer and sharing her talent and enthusiasm with others. Despite her accent, mannerisms, and fashion sense, it might surprise a few people to know that she was born Mary Louise Scully on January 10, 1932, in Portland, Oregon, and spent the first 15 years of her life in the small town of Dillon, Montana. When she was a teenager, her family packed up the car, apparently strapped the dog to the rumble seat, or so the story went, and drove to Anniston, Alabama, a small southern town.
Mary Lou attended Gulf Park College for Women in Gulfport, Mississippi, where she majored in Fine Arts before transferring to the University of Alabama, where she met Melvin Klotzman. They eloped (yes, she literally crawled out of a window to run off with him) on August 16, 1952, and began a marriage that lasted almost 71 years until Melvin’s death last year. She had their first child, Mark, while Melvin was stationed in Korea, and he was several months old before Melvin saw him for the first time. She and Melvin lived in Anniston, Alabama, Bayou Lafourche, Louisiana, Fort Bragg, North Carolina and Seguin, Texas before finally settling in Victoria in the mid-1950’s where Kay and Sara were born. At that time, there were many dirt roads in Victoria, and she thought that she had moved to the “end of the earth,” but Melvin had seen the movie Giant and insisted that Victoria was the place to be for the oil business. As the oldest of seven children, Mary Lou loved a get-together and had frequent large ones with extended family and small ones
with family and friends. Whether it was planned or not, she always had a “come on over” attitude. She loved fashion, clothes, and entertaining and would turn her entire living room into a Winter Wonderland worthy of a Disney World ride for many years. She was a member of the Junior League, the Texas Fine Arts Association, The Metropolitan Art League, The Watercolor Society of Houston, and Studio 205. She and Melvin were founding members of St. Francis Episcopal Church.
Mary Lou dabbled in art but truly discovered her passion as an adult. She went from self-teaching and local painting lessons all the way to traveling through New Mexico with art students and a professor from Lamar University when she was in her 60s. She studied under well-known artists such as Simon Michael, Frederick Taubes, Bill Zaner, Kam-Kow Choong, and Karen Dugan. She closed in a large open porch at her house and turned it into her studio, complete with tables, easels, and a wash station. For many years, she could be found there during the day, moving from the watercolor table to the acrylic section to the oil area as she kept multiple projects in different media in progress at the same time. Her works can be seen in Victoria and beyond. She enjoyed landscapes, especially involving Texas wildflowers, and her most well-known works were her Texas flags painted in acrylic using wildflowers (usually some combination of Bluebonnets, Indian Paintbrushes, and Poppies, but maybe with some Prickly Pear blooms or something different thrown in here or there). One of her proudest moments as an artist was painting a flag for George H. W. Bush while he was Vice President. Not content with working by herself in her studio, she opened Mesquite Gallery with her son Mark in the early 1990’s and sold her works and those of other
artists for a number of years. Mary Lou’s painting slowed down in her later years, especially due to her “immaculate degeneration,” as she called it, but she was still painting until the end. As she said herself in her last year of life (with her trademark big smile) “I can’t really see but, for some reason, I can still paint.” Yes, she certainly could and we are all that much more blessed for having her share her gifts with all of us.
Mary Lou is survived by her children Mark S. Klotzman (Melanie), Kay Klotzman McCoy and Sara Klotzman Solomon (Paul); grandchildren Spencer Klotzman, Lauren Klotzman, Kathryn McCoy Devine, Daniel Solomon, and Sean Solomon, great-grandchild Eliza Klotzman, sisters Janie Scully Canfield and Susan Scully Atkinson, and many nieces and nephews. She was predeceased in death by her parents, husband Melvin Klotzman, sister Eunice (Cissy) Alford, brothers Hugh Scherer (Sherry) Scully, William James (Jimmy) Scully, and Thomas London (Tommy) Scully, and son-in-law, Rawley McCoy.
Visitation will be at St. Francis Episcopal Church, Victoria, Texas at 1:00 pm on Saturday, November 16th with a funeral and inurnment following at 2:00 pm. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to St. Francis Episcopal Church, 3002 Miori Lane Victoria, Texas 77901.
