Mary Alice Bucher

Mary Alice Bucher, daughter of Claude Earl Bucher and Ethel Wales, was born 22 January 1915 in Williamsville, Sangamon County, IL, in the greater Springfield area. Her parents had recently come to this part of the state after spending their own childhoods in Stephenson County, IL and -- in her father’s case -- also in Green County, WI. Her father had become a doctor and Williamsville was the place he had chosen to set up his practice. Alas, Claude was killed in an automobile accident on the night of 4 October 1915 while making a house call to a patient. Mary was only eight months old at the time. Her younger sister Helen was still in the womb.

Inasmuch as the family had only been in Williamsville a short time, Ethel soon fled to the home she knew. She and her four children moved in with her parents Adam and Harriett Wales on their farm near Winslow, Stephenson County, IL. In the mid-1920s the household shifted to Freeport, the “big town” of the county. Both locales put them within easy visiting distance of their Bucher relatives back in Winslow and Martintown, Green County, WI. The bond with that side of the family was maintained in spite of Claude’s untimely demise. Ethel never remarried. She went to work for W.T. Rawleigh Company, a large household-goods, exotic-foods, and pharmeceuticals firm whose main factory was in Freeport.

Mary finished coming of age in Freeport, graduating from Freeport High School in 1933. (The photo at the upper left of this biography is her senior class photo from the 1933 yearbook.) She would remain a resident of the town for the rest of her long life with one brief exception as mentioned below. In early adulthood she went to work for Crum and Forster Insurance Company. Upon her marriage, she became a homemaker.

Mary’s spouse was Myrl Doss Maynard. They wed one another 20 June 1937 in Rockford, Winnebago County, IL. Myrl had been born 4 April 1907 in Pike County, IL, and had been raised in that area. He was one of six children of John F. Maynard and Maggie Pearl Long and was part of a clan that was well known in Pike County. Myrl came to the union at the age of thirty, having already acquired experience in a number of jobs, including manager of a five-and-dime store in Faribault, Rice County, MN, where in 1929 he had wed first wife Elva V. Gilbertson, formerly of La Crosse, WI. Sadly, Elva had passed away in early 1935, leaving behind a fourteen-month-old son, Richard Doss Maynard (1933-1991). The latter, sometimes known as Dick and as R.D., was three-and-a-half years old when Mary became his stepmother. She would go on to be the only mom he would remember ever having.

Mary and Myrl’s situation was not quite the traditional nuclear-family arrangement. The couple did not establish a home of their own until 1953 or 1954. For the first sixteen or so years of the marriage, they lived with Ethel Wales Bucher at 818 W. Cottonwood Street. Also occupying the house until his death in 1943 was widower Adam Jay Wales. One or two of Ethel’s brothers also spent intervals there. Over time, it evolved into the usual configuration of a set of parents and kids, with Ethel being the only “extra” member of the household. Mary had three biological children altogether, the first to arrive being son John Douglas (Jack, or J.D.) Maynard in the spring of 1940. By then stepson Dick was already in school. It was the sort of timing that spared Mary the challenge of having two youngsters in diapers simultaneously. The pattern was maintained. The next child, another son, was not born until well after Adam Wales had been laid to rest, and the last, a daughter, was not born until the end of the decade.

Mary and Myrl spent only one sojourn away from Freeport. In 1939, they moved to Tomah, Monroe County, WI, where Myrl worked as an assistant manager at a retail variety store -- an echo of his time in Faribault. Tomah was where the couple spent the majority of the pregnancy that resulted in the birth of Jack, though they made it back just soon enough that Jack was born in Freeport at Deaconess Hospital.

Myrl proceeded through a series of jobs, for the most part in a management role, but at first, employed by others. Immediately after the return to Freeport in 1940, he worked for the local Sears-Roebuck store. Later he worked for Fairbanks, Morse, & Company, an industrial firm headquartered in Chicago but which maintained a large factory in Freeport (the former Stover Manufacturing, purchased by Fairbanks-Morse in 1942). The company made parts, including motors and electrical equipment, for a wide array of vehicles including earthmoving and construction rigs, aircraft, and military trucks. In about 1954, Myrl was finally ready to become his own boss. He founded Mryl D. Maynard & Company Investments & Securities, an investment brokerage. The launching of this venture marked a new point of financial stability, and was when Mary and Myrl finally acquired their own home. Their dwelling was located at 1201 S. Stewart Avenue.

Mary was active in the community at large, including permanent membership in Freeport Baptist Church and the Freeport Women’s Club. She served as program chairperson of the latter institution. She was also a member of the Eastern Star.

The kids finished growing up. Like Mary, they attended Freeport High School, but while Mary herself had cleaved tightly to the milieu in which she had been raised, her offspring did the opposite. Richard of course was the first to fly the coop. He left in 1952 to spend the next four years in the U.S. Air Force, which naturally meant he was involved in the Korean War. Jack departed in the late 1950s to attend the University of Ohio in Athens, OH. Not long after graduation and his marriage to a college classmate, he settled long-term in Akron. He eventually stole a page from his father’s book and became an investment broker. Mary and Mryl’s youngest son left in the early 1960s. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana -- meaning he was based not very many miles away from Mary’s three siblings, all of whom had chosen to establish themselves in eastern-central Illinois -- and ended up marrying a college classmate. Together the pair settled in Colorado. Mary and Myrl’s daughter also attended the University of Illinois at Urbana. Unlike her brother, she married a Stephenson County boy, though they did not become husband and wife until they had both gone off to the same university. After his graduation, he joined the Air Force and as a result of his postings, Mary and Myrl’s daughter became a resident of North Carolina, and brought up her offspring there. Mary and Myrl ultimately would be blessed with a plethora of grandchildren, but had to be satisfied seeing them on visits rather than getting to be part of their day-to-day lives.

In her advanced years, Ethel Wales gave up the Cottonwood Street house and moved in with Mary and Myrl on Stewart Street, a reciprocation of the old arrangement. Ethel finally passed away in 1975 just short of ninety years of age.

Mary and Myrl’s marriage was lasting, coming to an end only with his death, and eventually covering a span of over fifty years. Myrl entered Freeport Manor Nursing center in 1991 and passed away there 17 June 1993. Mary survived him by six years, succumbing 14 December 1999 at Provena Saint Joseph Home in Freeport. Funeral services were held at First Baptist Church the following Saturday, 18 December 1999. Her remains, like those of Myrl, were placed at Oakland Cemetery and Mausoleum of Freeport.

In the late 1970s all but one of the surviving grandchildren of Elwood Bucher and Mary Lincoln “Tinty” Martin got together one day and this photo was taken of the generational group. The one missing surviving grandchild was Glenn Charles Ames, who was then living in California. Shown left to right are Dwight Cecil Buss, Phyllis Irene Claus Scott, Mary Alice Bucher Maynard, Thelma Eileen Ritter Welch, Evelyn Lois Claus Stoner, Estel Maynard Buss, and Helen Claudia Bucher Brobst.

Descendants of Mary Alice Bucher with Myrl Doss Maynard

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