Mary Burton Mohler

Mary Burton Mohler – A brief tribute

Born in Sullivan, Indiana, in 1903, Mary Burton graduated as a teacher from what is now Indiana State University and later earned a Master’s in Remedial Reading at George Washington University. She started teaching in Montgomery County in 1926, serving as elementary principal, junior high English teacher and from 1935-1951 as English teacher and guidance counselor at Bethesda Chevy Chase High School. There she initiated the first college information service and College Night Program the United States.
Always a strong supporter of her students, during World War II she organized a school-composed letter outreach to every BCC student in the service. Thanks to her efforts to find addresses, the third letter went to almost a thousand former students. After the War Mary pushed for college extension classes at BCC to facilitate veteran’s entrance into college. This led to the creation of Montgomery Junior College, now Montgomery College.

In 1951, she was asked by the Superintendent of Schools to work with supervisors, principals, and teachers to help students who were not reading well. In 1954, she was invited to develop a pilot program of remedial reading in three elementary schools. From 1956 to 1962, she supervised the Montgomery County Reading Clinic with 28 elementary reading teachers and a clinical staff of 10 to better identify and address reading difficulties. This was almost 20 years before the passage of the Federal Education of All Handicapped Children Act 91-142. Mary encouraged the Maryland University College of Education to start a program to train, and the State to certify, reading teachers. Mary founded and then served as president of the Maryland Corrective-Remedial Reading Association. The International Reading Association recognized her efforts in 1962.
She was a lifelong member of the Chevy Chase branch of the AAUW, the National and State Education Associations, and Delta Kappa Gamma, the women’s honorary educational sorority. Mary Mohler was also active in the community. A charter member of the Bethesda Library Board, she was instrumental in the building of the library. She served as chairperson of the education and scholarship committees for the Women’s Club of Bethesda and was on the decorating committee for Suburban Hospital when it was first built. A long term delegate to the Montgomery County Civic Federation, in 1956 she received the Evening Star Cup for her services to the County, the first woman and educator to receive this award.

After 36 years Mary retired in the spring of 1963, but she never lost her enthusiasm for teaching young people and encouraging them to ‘reach for the stars.’ In her retirement, she tutored students in reading and remained active in advocating for reading help. She loved visits, letters, and calls from former students, many of whom became prominent in government and business. She passed away in March 1986 and in her will established this scholarship at Montgomery College, as well as one at Indiana University, and one at Perdue University in honor of her brother, my father. She never had children of her own, but she impacted the lives of thousands in many ways.

Elizabeth Burton Morley, MS, MAT, MSW, LSW