Wardine Norvell Guthrie

Wardine had an outgoing vivacious personality, was highly intelligent, beautiful, and immensely curious and engaged with life. Her life, as her death, was marked by elegance and grace. We will deeply miss her.

Wardine was preceded in death by her father, A.D. Norvell; her mother, Elizabeth Sain Norvell; and her husband, Robert K. Guthrie.

She is survived by God's special blessings, daughter, Mary Ellen Guthrie Meg Wier and husband, Ronald Hargis Wier; son, Dr. William Keith Guthrie and his fiance, Kathleen Carter; grandchildren: Bailey Briscoe Wier, Zachary Hargis Wier and wife Gabi, and Casey Gillis Guthrie; and nephew, John Frederick Guthrie of Dayton, Texas.

Wardine was born in Beech Grove, Tennessee on November 1, 1917; graduated from Central High School in Manchester, Tennessee; attended Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro and the George Peabody School for Teachers now a branch of Vanderbilt in Nashville.

She lost her father when she was eleven and her mother at the age of eighteen. In 1936, Wardine moved to Dallas, Texas, where her father's cousin and his wife, Porter and Lavye Walker, became her loving surrogate parents.

After graduating from Southern Methodist University, she worked until her marriage to Robert Keith Guthrie on May 30, 1940.

During World War II, they lived in Boston and Washington D.C., where she worked in the Petroleum Industry of War Council and he, in the US Navy.

Wardine later served as bookkeeper/accountant for her husband's various businesses, including Data Processing Center, Inc., in San Antonio.

In 1946, they returned to Dallas, moving to San Antonio in 1948, where Wardine became active in the Petroleum Engineering and Geological Wives' Auxiliaries. She was chairman of the ladies' activities for the 1954 AIME American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers National Convention.

She joined the First Presbyterian Church in 1950. She was very dedicated in serving her church as volunteer, teacher, Deacon, and Elder. She deeply loved her church and to be surrounded in its loving arms, as she put it, was the confirmation of God's love.

In her later years, she taught high school math and history at Churchill and Madison High Schools, and traveled extensively in Europe.

She then worked with her son Keith, opening and developing Guthrie's Books, which operated for many years in the Brook Hollow area. She absolutely loved children's books and visiting with friends and customers who dropped by.

Wardine was a strong advocate of higher education, and provided unconditional support and encouragement for her children's and grandchildren's educational pursuits.

A Memorial Service will be held on the 16th day of June, 2008 with the Rev. George Sturch officiating at First Presbyterian Church sanctuary at 11:00 A.M.

Memorial contributions may be made to The San Antonio Academy of Texas, an institution of junior learning, that she strongly supported and loved for many years.