The Life of Mary Lou Koller Semans
SEMANS MARY LOU KOLLER SEMANS Mary Lou Semans (neé Koller), 82, died Friday evening, March 6, 2015 at her home in Sumner (Bethesda), Maryland after a valiant battle with metastasized breast cancer. She was born in Grand Forks, North Dakota on December 2, 1932, the daughter of Dr. William Sides Koller, a bacteriologist and pharmacist, and Florence Beatty Koller. She grew up in Radnor, PA and attended Radnor High School. With the abiding support of her parents, she successfully managed her undiagnosed dyslexia, and graduated from Stephens College in St. Louis, MO in 1953, with an AA in education. Mary Lou also attended West Chester State Teachers College and the Vassar Summer Institute with an interest in special needs learning. She was personally selected by special needs pioneer, Helena Devereux, to teach in her first school in Devon, PA. She went on to teach at The Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, PA. In 1956, Mary Lou married Edwin Walker Semans, Jr. of Wayne, PA (whom she met in the eighth grade) at the Wayne Presbyterian Church. She taught school while Ed attended law school at the University of Pennsylvania. After he passed the Pennsylvania Bar Exam, Ed took a job with the Social Security Administration and they moved to Baltimore. In Baltimore, their children Linda Koller Semans and Edwin Walker Semans, III were born. They moved to Washington in 1963 to be closer to Ed's job, and settled in the Wood Acres neighborhood of Bethesda. Transferring her membership in the Junior League from the Baltimore to Washington chapter, Mary Lou embarked on a career as one of Washington's foremost volunteers. In the 1960's, she was the President of the Children's Theatre of DC under the auspices of the DC Recreation Center; Chairman of the Junior League Players of the Metropolitan area; and began a lifelong commitment to Adventure Theatre. Since 1974, as a board member of All Hallows Guild at the Washington National Cathedral, she served as Chairman of the Flower Mart and the force behind the wildly popular White Elephant Booth. In 1971, as President of Adventure Theatre, she worked with the National Park Service to create a permanent home for the theatre at Glen Echo Park. For forty years, she ran the costume loft, which has since been renamed in her honor, designing and sewing costumes for main stage productions and the children's classes and workshops. Her deftness with costumes is well known among the English and Drama departments of area schools. She was the go-to expert for parents at Halloween and party-goers at all times. Leftover fabric found its way to the quilts she created for school fundraisers at the Landon School and the National Cathedral School, where her children attended, or smaller quilts and blankets for boarder babies at Children's hospital, and into finger puppets and stuffed animals for the NIH Children's Inn. She taught herself to knit as the boarder babies needed little caps, too. She enthusiastically served in The Junior League of Washington as a member and as Chair of the Sustainers, The Sumner Garden Club, The National Capital Federation of Garden Clubs, the Glen Echo Park Foundation, Montgomery County Cancer Society, Davis Memorial Goodwill Industries as Chair of the Embassy Tour and at the Annual Used Book Sale, Special Olympics' Night of Trees and Entertaining People to benefit the Washington Home, among others. Unbelievably, she also raised two children, Linda and Ed, two dogs, Jenny and Betsy, and was an active partner in a happy marriage to Ed. As a family, they arrived every summer in the Thousand Islands in Canada for the opening of bass season. Mary Lou was particularly fond of catching Northern Pike. She and Ed spent many happy weekends on their boat, Snapper, docked at Point Lookout, MD. Mary Lou is survived by her husband Edwin Semans of Sumner, MD; by her daughter Linda Semans Donovan, her son-in-law, John Donovan, and her granddaughter Hope Semans Donovan of McLean, VA; by her son Ed Semans, and grandsons Cole Semans and Walker Semans of Annapolis, MD, by her niece Susan Koller Walsh of Baltimore, MD, by her nephew William Koller of Titusville, PA and by her countless, devoted friends. A memorial service will be announced in this paper and is planned for early spring (April).
Published in The Washington Post on Mar. 10, 2015
Published in The Washington Post on Mar. 10, 2015