M. Hatcher; taught English literature
When William Hatcher drove onto the campus of the University of Kansas in 1967, he needed directions. "I had arrived from Boston" to become a teaching assistant, he said, "and I didn't know quite where to go" on campus.
When William Hatcher drove onto the campus of the University of Kansas in 1967, he needed directions.
"I had arrived from Boston" to become a teaching assistant, he said, "and I didn't know quite where to go" on campus.
"Then I saw this striking-looking woman on the sidewalk. So I stopped and asked her for directions."
As a fellow teaching assistant, Mary Gwinn became interested in knowing more about the young man from Boston.
"I've been letting her point the way," Hatcher said, "for the last 50 years."
On Monday, Sept. 5, Mary Gwinn Hatcher, 76, of Medford Lakes, a former English literature teacher at what is now Rowan College at Burlington County in Pemberton Township and then at Ocean County College in Toms River, died of complications from Alzheimer's disease at the Evergreens, a retirement community in Moorestown.
A few years after she arrived at the Toms River campus in the late 1980s, her husband said, Mrs. Hatcher added the college's first course in African American literature to her schedule.
"She wanted to do something," her husband said, and establishing her course "brought forth the wonderful talents of so many African American writers."
She taught that course, along with her work in composition and early American writing, until she retired in 2005.
Earlier, at the Pemberton campus, where she began in 1973, she added something else to her teaching load.
Mrs. Hatcher taught a course for those who wanted to move on from the two-year curriculum to complete their educations at a four-year college, her husband said.
"It was designed for people of talent, but not necessarily academic accomplishment," he said.
Born in Champaign, Ill., Mrs. Hatcher earned a bachelor's degree in English literature at the University of Illinois and a master's in the subject at the University of Kansas.
The Hatchers were married in Truro, on Cape Cod, in 1969. William Hatcher retired in 2005 as an associate professor of English at the Pemberton campus.
Mary Ellen Byrne met Mrs. Hatcher in the early 1990s as a fellow English teacher at the Toms River campus.
They once shared a trip to London to catch up on the latest West End performances, the sort of theatergoing experience they shared later in Philadelphia.
"She was a lovely person," Byrne said.
But once Mrs. Hatcher realized that the beginnings of Alzheimer's were affecting her work in the 2000s, she retired.
"If she wasn't excellent," her husband said, "she didn't want to do it."
Besides her husband, she is survived by sons Eugene and Jeffrey, a sister, and three grandchildren.
A viewing was set from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 9, at the Bradley & Stow Funeral Home, 127 Medford-Mount Holly Rd., Medford, and 10 to 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 10, at the Cathedral of the Woods, 100 Stokes Rd., Medford Lakes, before an 11 a.m. funeral there, with interment in Park View Cemetery in Medford.
Donations may be sent to the Delaware Valley Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association, in care of the funeral home at Box 1542, Medford, N.J. 08055.
Condolences may be offered to the family at www.bradleystow.com.
610-313-8134@WNaedele