Mary died in Green Valley, Arizona on January 10, 2022.
Mary (Gruber) McDevitt was born on October 17, 1947 to Arnold and Marion (Fox) Gruber in Shawano, Wisconsin. Mary graduated from Shawano High School in 1966 and from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in May 1970 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Elementary Education with a minor in English. It was at Oshkosh that she met Bob McDevitt, her husband of 52 years. For the first nine years of her career in education, Mary taught first, second, and third grades at Bear Creek Elementary School and Longfellow Elementary School in Clintonville, Wisconsin. Beginning in 1979, she taught kindergarten in Clintonville at Rexford-Longfellow, the Masonic Temple, and Dellwood Elementary School, a position she would hold for twenty-two years until her retirement in 2001.
Most of Mary’s retirement was spent on golf and travel. She possessed a particular talent for interior decorating and thoroughly enjoyed the challenges of completing their new house in Lessor Township, Wisconsin in 1999, and a new home in Green Valley, Arizona in 2015. Her greatest joy was celebrating time with her family and the traditional trip to Milwaukee to bake Christmas cookies with her granddaughter, Jenna Schepp. Mary and Bob permanently moved to Green Valley, Arizona following a celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary in 2019. The highlight of that move was when their daughters accompanied them for “one last road trip together.”
She was preceded in death by her father, mother, and brother, Keith. She is survived by her husband, daughter, Anne (Tim) Schepp, and daughter, Katie (Josh Holland), as well as her only grandchild, Jenna Schepp, and her brother, John (Mary) Gruber.