The long day closes. PATRICIA JANE MARSHALL BEVIL, known from infancy simply as Jane, ninety-five years, twenty-eight days forever-young, bade farewell to this life and all she held dear on Monday, October 24, 2011. She was a beloved mother, grandmother, and aunt; a deeply caring and devoted friend to countless persons; and a widely respected, 64-year resident of Houston's Garden Oaks community, where she taught fifth and sixth grades at the local elementary school for thirty-one years until her retirement in 1991.
She was born to Rose Ellen Middleton Marshall and Arthur W. Marshall, in Anahuac, Chambers County, Texas, on September 26, 1916. From her earliest years, she repeatedly distinguished herself with a combination of great beauty, verbal and musical talents, formidable intellect, and great courage in the face of illness and other hardships. She started school in the third grade at age seven and graduated from Anahuac High School as Salutatorian of her class at age sixteen. Following graduation from high school, she stayed out of college for two years so that her older brother, Arthur, could finish his studies at the Rice Institute (now Rice University). She then attended Lamar Junior College (now Lamar University), in Beaumont, and the University of Texas at Austin. There she earned a B.A. summa cum laude and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the Sidney Lanier Literary Society, the University Glee Club, the Bluebonnet Belles, and Chi Omega Sorority. In 1940, she completed the degree Master of Arts in history, also at UT- Austin, having maintained a perfect 4.0 grade point average through all her college studies.
She then taught school in Nederland, Texas until 1942, when she married Jack Nugent Bevil of Hull, Texas and went to live with him in New Orleans, where he was in medical school at Tulane University. During their years in New Orleans, she worked for the U.S. Navy, a job in which she remained for two years after they moved to Houston in 1945. They moved to Garden Oaks in the spring of 1947, and their only child, Jack Marshall Bevil, was born in the fall of that year. In 1960, Mrs. Bevil began her long and successful second teaching career at Garden Oaks Elementary School, following a six-year period of active involvement in that school's Parent-Teacher Association, of which she was elected president in 1958. She also served as a den mother in a Cub Scout pack from 1956 to 1959, and she was a Sunday school teacher and superintendent at Baptist Temple Church from 1952 through 1966.
Following the death of her father in 1956, Mrs. Bevil spent her summers, and as much other time as she could, looking after her mother and spinster aunt who still lived in Anahuac, and she took her mother into her own home in 1962 and cared for her there until Mrs. Marshall passed away in 1971.
Throughout her long, happy, and successful life, Mrs. Bevil never failed to be infinitely sympathetic with those who were facing adversities in their lives. As a single parent, she rose bravely to the challenges of the task in a time when many viewed divorce as a stigma and when there was very little in the way of support for women or their children in that situation.
As a teacher, she fostered a sense of self-worth in each of her students, found each child's unique combination of strengths and worked from that point, and gave all learners all possible opportunities to achieve their highest potentials, to stretch their imaginations to the fullest, and to transcend the sometimes Procrustean requirements and limitations of codified school curricula. She instilled, both in her son and in all the many other young people whom she influenced, a strong work ethic and sense of responsibility balanced by empathy with and compassion for others; and she was a paragon of boundless optimism tempered with cautious good sense, steadfast fidelity to a moral code that was at once traditional yet tolerant, a lifelong belief in rugged individualism kept in check by a sense of communal responsibility, an openness to a broad spectrum of views balanced by a clear, non-vacillating delineation of what she personally could and could not embrace philosophically, and a dogged refusal to let life's setbacks make her lose the critical sense of balance underlying those splendid, admirable traits. She had enormous respect for, and recognized the value and dignity of, everyone throughout all ranges of humanity.
Mrs. Bevil was preceded in death by her parents, her aunt Elizabeth Middleton, and her brothers Arthur Watson Marshall and James Allen Marshall. She leaves her son, Dr. J. Marshall (Jack) Bevil and his wife Polly, of Houston, and their son Dafydd Ian Bevil and his wife Kristin, of Chicago. She also is survived by her niece Anne Marshall Cuddeback and her husband John of Austin; nephews James Allen Marshall II of Bacliff, Texas and William Everett Marshall of Texas City. She also leaves innumerable former students and other loving friends. More important and more in keeping with her personal essence, however, is her leaving behind herself literally thousands of lives that are both richer and fuller as either a direct or an indirect result of what she always sought to do, which was to leave this world a better, kinder, wiser, more beautiful, and happier place than she found it.
Mrs. Bevil's family wishes to thank the personnel of both North Cypress Medical Center and the Vitas Hospice, Memorial City, Houston, for the compassionate care with which they provided her during her final days.
In lieu of flowers, it is requested that donations be made to either Camp Sweeney, P.O. Box 918, Gainesville, Texas 76241 or Angels in Action, 8350 Hwy 6 North, Houston, Texas 77095, a Houston cancer ministry.
A celebration of her life will be held at the Pat H. Foley Funeral Home, 1200 West 34th Street, Houston, on Saturday, October 29, 2011, at 2:00 P.M. She will be laid to rest in the Marshall family plot in the Anahuac Cemetery, on Friday, October 28, 2011, at 5:30 P.M. Visitation will be held on Thursday, October 27, 2011 from 5:00-9:00 p.m. All family, friends and friends of family, and former students are welcome at all ceremonies.
