Mary Ruth Wingo

Mary Ruth Fisher Wingo, age 86, of Leander, Texas passed away on Sunday, June 14, 2026. She was born October 8, 1939 in Bartlesville, OK to Gordon Henderson Fisher and Lois Mildred Gidley Fisher. She was baptized in 1960 at Georgetown Church of Christ, and remained a dedicated Christian throughout her life.

Mary Ruth graduated from Stephen F. Austin High School in Austin, TX in 1957 and went on to attend Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX where she studied business and accounting. She found a love for accounting and doing taxes which eventually led her to start her own private accounting and tax business in Austin, specializing in support for engineers and architects. After 55 years, she retired from this business, but she continued working in finance by being the bookkeeper for Leander Church of Christ for 10 years. In 2017 she volunteered with the VITA Tax Preparation Service through the IRS preparing taxes at the Leander Library for low income families.

Along with her bookkeeping skills, Mary Ruth was also a gifted copy editor and proofreader. For many years she was the editor and manuscript typist for the Lone Star Publishers; she was on their staff when they moved from typewriters to computers, and her first computer was a Radio Shack TRS-DOS. Using this new technology, she re-wrote, typed out, and assisted with publishing a number of college textbooks.

In addition to her professional accomplishments, Mary Ruth enjoyed many hobbies and creative pursuits throughout her life that largely focused on music. She studied piano from age 5 through junior high school, but her primary joy was singing. She was a volunteer choir director at Asbury Methodist Church in Austin, and she continued as volunteer director in college at the Georgetown Methodist Church. As an adult, she joined the acapella choir at Georgetown Church of Christ and was able to sing in numerous weddings and funerals. Not only did Mary love singing, but she also was an avid music collector. In high school and college she collected vinyl records, and she continued this pastime when the music industry moved to CDs. Because Mary’s CD collection contained hundreds of volumes, she cataloged them all on spreadsheets to guarantee she could locate any title easily.

Other hobbies include being a seamstress; she was known to make wedding and bridesmaid dresses as well as sewing clothes for all three of her sons while they were young. Mary was known to her friends and family as a sports “nut.” She loved watching football, basketball, and baseball- her favorite professional teams were the Houston Texans and Dallas Cowboys, but her first love was the Texas Longhorns, and she would watch any sport they played whenever the opportunity arose. She also enjoyed watching Hallmark movies, and she had many home-recorded DVDs available (and cataloged for easy location) at all times. In 1993 Mary fell in love with ballroom dancing and eventually became an instructor for ballroom, country western, and swing dance through the YMCA in Leander.

Preceding Mary Ruth in death were her mother Lois Fisher Burnham, father Gordon Fisher, brother Charles Fisher, and half brother David Burnham, step-mothers Burnie Rounsavall Fisher and Elinor Armstrong Fisher, grandson Joshua Whiteley, and nephew Garrett Burnham.

Mary Ruth is survived by her sister Kathryn Kendrick and husband Gerald; her half-brother Darrell Burnham and wife Colleen; her son Harry Calvin Whiteley and wife Jayleen; son Donald Lee Whiteley and wife Susan; and son Billy Ray Whiteley and wife Shannon. Mary also leaves behind 11 grandchildren–Chris, Cara, Candace, Jordan, Reagan, Justin, Krista, Jeff, Jared, and Shawn– along with 24 great-grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, Mary has requested that donations in her memory be made to Leukemia and Lymphoma Research, M. D. Anderson Cancer Research, American Heart Association, or World Bible School in Cedar Park, TX