Mary Lane Harle

MARY LANE OLIVER HARLE was born February 4, 1931, in San Antonio, Texas, to Lida Smith Oliver and Lane Elsberry Oliver (Dadlo). Mary Lane lived the early part of her life in South Texas, starting with Big Wells. The family began moving around about 1941, going from Dilley (1941), to Junction (1942), then Pearsall (1946), and ending up in Carrizo Springs (1947). Dadlo died at Carrizo Springs on January 1, 1948, in Mary Lane's senior year of high school. She remained there through graduation and then moved to Kingsville with her mother to begin college at Texas A&I. After 2 years at A&I, Mary Lane moved to Austin to attend University of Texas. While there, she majored in English and Spanish. After graduation (with highest honors), she became a teacher. She taught in Houston and Sugar Land. In June of 1954, she traveled to Mexico for an international studies program through the University of Houston. She returned to Houston and in September began violin lessons with Max Winder, who was the associate concertmaster at Houston Symphony. Mary Lane desired to be an airline stewardess, but was discouraged by her mother, Lida, who pushed for Mary Lane to be a teacher. Teaching was a stable job appropriate for a young woman in this era. Mary Lane acquiesced, writing to her mother, "I have decided to quit pining for the unknown and to like teaching, because I realize that I am actually well-suited to being a teacher and it is work that endures where glamour fades in other jobs. I'm trying to convince myself of this at any rate." She married James B. Harle, MD, on June 11, 1955. She moved to Bellville and taught for a few more years, but she had no passion for teaching and longed for the unknown and romantic. She began painting in the late 50's and embarked on art education at the Houston Museum of Fine Art School in the early to mid 60's. It was during this period that she and James purchased the farm, which Mary Lane loved with her whole heart. She moved her studio out to the camp house and worked assiduously at painting. In 1967, she spent the summer in Mexico, where she studied at the Institute of Art in San Miguel de Allende. In 1969, she entered Sam Houston State University, where she completed her Masters of Art Education (again, with the highest honors). It was a pragmatic degree, and one she never used. She divorced James in 1975 and moved out to the farm where she lived for the remainder of her active life. Mary Lane was an artist, musician, poet, and writer. She exhibited her work in the Museum School of Art Shows at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, at Sam Houston State University, and at various local and regional shows. She was associated for a number of years with the Lowell Collins Gallery in Houston, Texas. Her work is owned by private collectors throughout the country. Always fighting low self esteem, she hated photographs of herself. She was a hermit and treasured her solitary, inward life at the farm. There she immersed herself in the colors, shapes, and forces of the elemental things of nature - meadows, woods, skies, sunlight, and storms, the deep subliminal beauty of sunsets and dawns. As she put it: "The most difficult thing is to capture that glimpse of poetic mystery, the sense of a timeless and eternal world that flashes out sometimes from the sunlight and shadows falling across leaves in a wood, from a misty dawn or a spring wind blowing across a meadow, or from the timeless infinitude of the horizon. Perhaps a page from a work by Juan Ramon Jiminez best expresses that fleeting awareness of the strange purity and eternity of life alone with nature- BEFORE US LIES THE OPEN COUNTRY. FACE TO FACE WITH THE VAST PURE SKY OF FIERY BLUE, MY EYES-SO FAR FROM MY EARS-OPEN CONTENETEDLY, RECEIVEING IN ALL ITS QUIETNESS THAT NAMELESS CALM, THAT HARMONIOUS AND DIVINE SERENITY THAT LIES IN THE INFINITUDE OF THE HORIZON. AND FROM A DISTANCE, OVER THE FIELDS, SHARP CRIES FROM CHILDREN, FINELY MUFFLED, BROKEN, BREATHLESS, FAINT: CRAZY-MAN! CRAZY-MAN!' To capture the strangeness, mystery, and beauty of life in something so earthbound as paint and canvas is truly an impossible task, but still, one has to try." Though she treasured her solitude, at the same time she longed to share her experience with anyone who visited. Unfortunately, that usually meant she spent the whole visit trying to make her guest comfortable and often she had to be forced to sit down and have a glass of wine and simply enjoy the view. In 1986, Mary Lane joined the Austin County Civic Chorale as a founding member. She loved the chorale and adored Janet, the Chorale's director. She was an ardent supporter and sang in every program up to 2008, when her affliction made singing impossible. After a long struggle with dementia, Mary Lane died peacefully on August 4, 2011, six months to the day after her 80th birthday. Mary Lane is survived by her SISTER: Lida Florence Pitts, HER CHILDREN: James Oliver and Paula, John Baldwin and Jerry Scheff and Sally Lane Haugland and Brett. She is also survived by her GRANDCHILDREN: Sara Elizabeth Harle, James Morgan Harle, Samuel MacRae Haugland and Mackenzie Lane Haugland; nieces and nephews and numerous friends both near and far. The family wishes to express their immense and unending gratitude to the staff at Rose Hill Retirement Home and the nurses and staff at Hospice Brazos Valley, who gave her such excellent care in the last stage of her life. Moonlit Plum Tree- Wait. Spring will Come