Mary Jayne Williams 1914-2002

WILLIAMS, LESSINGER

Posted By: Marguerite (email)
Date: 11/27/2002 at 12:42:14

Mary Jayne Williams of Iowa City, died on November 12th of natural causes at the Iowa City Rehabilitation and Health Care Center. She was 87.

A memorial service to celebrate her life will be held on Saturday, November 16, 2002, at 2:00 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church, 2701 Rochester Avenue, Iowa City. In lieu of flowers, contributions in her memory may be made to the Drama Department, West High School, 290 Melrose Avenue, Iowa City, IA. 52246. Online condolences can be sent to the family at www.lensingfuneral.com

“M. J.,” as she was known to her students, taught at Iowa City’s West High School from 1969 to 1990, directing plays, coaching drama students to top awards in state-wide competitions, and establishing a chapter of the National Thespian Society there. She was well-known in the community and state for leading her students through high quality productions of challenging plays by Shakespeare, Moliére, Chekhov, Eugene O’Neill, and other classic and modern authors. Her peers voted her into the Hall of Fame of the Iowa High School Speech Association (IHSSA) in 1990, at the culmination of her forty-four years as a drama teacher.

The daughter of E. J. Lessenger, M. D., and Florence M. Lessenger of New London, Iowa, she attended the University of Iowa where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1937. In her senior year there, she served as president of Alpha Chi Omega sorority. She was also a member of P.E.O. for much of her life.

She taught English and drama in New London from 1946-56 and in Fairfield from 1956-69. Over her career she directed over 100 productions, including Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night, Moliére’s Imaginary Invalid, Thorton Wilder’s Our Town, Eugene O’Neill’s Ah! Wilderness, Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie, Dylan Thomas’s Under Milkwood, and Shaw’s Pygmalion. Her students won IHSSA and Iowa Forensic League awards in many categories including one-act plays, ensemble acting, humorous monologues, and original oratory. She also directed many plays for childrens’s audiences, including Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, Pinochio, and Alice in Wonderland. While living at Walden senior residence in Coralville in the 1990s, she directed readers’s theatre performances there. Jerry Argenbright, principal at West High School said in an Iowa City Press Citizen article on her at the time of her retirement [June 5, 1990], “I’ve seen her as someone with high expectations for kids. She has seen drama as a really critical area.” Janie Yates, who taught drama at City High High, said Williams was recognized throughout the state for her talent.

Among the students she coached in plays were her son and daughter, Gary Jay Williams of University Park, Maryland, and Samantha Patterson of Dwight, Illinois, who survive her together with two grandchildren, Daniel and Matthew Patterson of Dwight. Her marriage to Owen R. Williams of New London ended in divorce in 1950. She was preceded in death by her parents and by her brother, Jay Lessenger, who died in 1982.