First woman on Mehlville school board made lasting impression on community

By BILL MILLIGAN

For the Mail Call

Rapid growth, partisan bickering, controversy over redistricting and inadequate state funding have been problems for the Mehlville School District since its inception in 1951.

But today the community doesn’t have someone with the personality and temperament of Mary A. Guze (nee Stewart) on the Board of Education.

People who knew Guze agree on one thing.

“She was a wonderful woman,” said Maureen Abel of Lemay. “She was the first woman on the Mehlville school board and she believed in getting to the root of the problem. She always saw the good in people – it didn’t matter who.”

Amid the rancor of combining the Mehl-ville, Washington, Point, Oakville and Hagemann school districts in the early 1950s, Guze’s temperament must have been strained.

The Missouri Board Of Education was pressuring rural school districts all over Missouri to consolidate in 1950 as a way of streamlining its bureaucracy, maintaining funding for educational programs and providing local high schools for all of the state’s children, according to information published in “Reflections: a History of the Mehlville School District and its Com-munities” by Tracy Bruce.

Guze moved to the Mehlville Board of Education from her post on the St. John’s school board.

“She believed in visiting the schools,” Abel said. “Whatever they needed, she was there, giving her all.”

State officials threatened to limit state funding to school districts that refused to consolidate, but that didn’t make the pros-pect of losing local control of their schools more attractive to residents of the Oakville and Point areas. In November 1951, the measure was approved by a 35-vote margin – 853 in favor and 817 opposed.

Guze was instrumental in helping smooth the transition, according to former Mehl-ville High School Principal Clifford Strat-ton. After the community began to accept reorganization, Guze turned her attention to drivers’ education.

“She was a great promoter of drivers’ education,” Abel said. “She thought it was important students get that before they got their drivers’ licenses.”

“She drove until she was 92,” said another friend, Eunagene Pohlig. “She would pick up people that didn’t have any transportation. Once I had an auto accident and she loaned me her car for several weeks.”

Besides her public service, Guze was ac-tive at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, where she taught Sunday School and Bible Class and also was very involved in United Methodist Women, Church Women Unitedand Prayer Fellowship.

“She was a very sweet and dear lady,” said Deborah Lampe, who came to know Guze late in her life. “When we were in meetings together you just felt that from her in everything she did and said.”

When her church built a multi-purpose building in honor of church historian Claude Parkhurst, Guze, an antique collector, donated Parkhurst’s World War I uniform and other memorabilia for display in the building.

Her husband, Albert, was a sergeant in the 482nd Aero Squadron in World War I. He preceded his wife in death on June 13, 1967.

The couple had a daughter, Carole, and two grandchildren, who were unable to be reached for this article.

“She loved antiques,” Stratton said. “She had an extensive collection of trivets, paperweights and fans.”

“She was very intelligent and capable,” Pohlig said. “She was good at math. She handled stocks and took care of herself.

“Whenever we went to meetings she wanted to stop and have pizza, or Steak ‘N’ Shake on the way home,” Pohlig said. “I loved her dearly.”

Guze died Aug. 5, 1992. The Mehlville School District remains a vibrant testament to her time in this community.

“She was always extremely proud that she was the first woman elected to the Board Of Education,” Stratton said.