Mary Elizabeth Polite Britt received her heavenly promotion on January 4, 2020 at the age of 96 years, four months and nine days. Born on August 17, 1923 to Eicle and Ida Bell (Polson) Polite, and the baby sister to Lucile (Jones) and Elsie (Cress) who preceded her in death.
Mary Elizabeth grew up in Macon, Missouri, was a graduate of the Macon High School Class of 1941 and earned her 60-hour teaching certificate at Kirksville State Teacher’s College (Truman University) to begin fulfilling her dream of teaching school.
Her career in education began in 1943 at Marceline, Missouri, teaching third graders. In 1945 she returned to Macon and taught first grade in the very same room in which she had learned to read. After taking college classes at KSTC during summers, Mrs. Britt earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education on August 11, 1949. Besides Chanute, Kansas; Mexico, Missouri, Bevier, New Cambria, and the one-room Oak Grove and Kaseyville Schools where she taught all eight grades, she retired from teaching in 1979 at Prairie Hill School, part of the Salisbury R-IV District where she taught first and second grades. She often commented that her favorite class was teaching first graders, with their missing front teeth, how to read. She even developed her own curriculum that included phonics. Dismayed over the 1962 Supreme Court ruling to remove state-sponsored prayer from public schools, Mrs. Britt continued to pray with her classes until in 1971, she was asked to quit the practice. She promptly circulated a petition within the District and was shocked and appalled when one family refused to sign it. Of course, no ruling could inhibit her private prayers for her students, her friends and her family and Mary did pray without ceasing and never failed to encourage even the most troubled who crossed her path.
Mary Elizabeth professed her faith in Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior when she was ten years old and was baptized and became a member of the First Christian Church in Macon. As a Junior High Student, she taught the Beginner Sunday School Class. It was while attending the church’s youth activities during her college years, that Mary met a young man from Richmond, Missouri and agreed to marry him when he returned from World War II. Her fiancé never returned from the war. A few years later, her future sister-in-law, Leona Sherman, introduced Mary Elizabeth to her brother, Wayne Britt. Mary and Wayne dated a couple of years and in her words, “I felt Wayne and I had dated long enough. If I was supposed to marry him, ‘please show me. If not, please shut the door’, I prayed as I knelt beside my bed. At that moment, the phone beside me on the night stand rang. It was Wayne asking me to come back to Chanute, Kansas (where he was farming) and marry him! Now, what would you think?” she asked. “I told him I’d be on the train the next day.” In order to obtain a marriage license over the Labor Day holidays, the pretty strawberry blond school teacher and the dashing Merchant Marine who had returned from WWII to farming traveled to Eureka Springs, Arkansas and were married at the Eureka Springs Baptist Church on September 3rd, 1949. At the time of Wayne’s passing in 2011, the couple had been married 62 ½ years.
After much heartache over many miscarriages, Mary and Wayne became the parents of a son, Randy, whom she called, “our great blessing”. Family, their own little family as well as extended family, was the center of Mary and Wayne Britt’s life. When Randy married Karla Davis in 1973, they accepted Karla as their very own daughter to the extent, that in 2015, after suffering the effects of Alzheimer’s disease for many years, when Mary was told that Karla’s own mother had passed away, she asked, “Now, when did I die?”
The Mary and Wayne Britt family grew from one son and daughter-in-law to three grandchildren and later their spouses: Robin Britt Gebhardt and Jeff; Ryan and Rebecca (Schluter) Britt; and Kara Elizabeth Edwards and Ryan. Mary Elizabeth’s ten great-grandchildren, Jeremiah, Hannah, Abigail and Grace Elizabeth Gebhardt; Lydea, Luke and Lynelle Britt; and EttaLynn Elizabeth, EmmaKate and Justus Edwards, were all present last August 17, to celebrate Mary’s 96th birthday and Mary exclaimed, “What a great party with such a BIG family!”
This schoolteacher/farmwife/mother and grandmother embodied the spirit of the Proverbs 31 lady. Clothed with strength and dignity, Mary did not retire from teaching hundreds of children to read and write and then do nothing. She prepared for her retirement by enrolling in cake decorating classes and then turned her hobby of baking cakes into a ministry, celebrating the lives of friends and family and comforting their sorrows with the “A Cake by Mary means Someone Loves You” stamp included with each delectable and artistic creation. Her secret cake recipe was created with her own cake flavoring which she had state approved and registered with the “Mary Britt Cake Flavoring” label.
As her neighborhood became known for Thomas Hill Lake’s recreational advantages, Mary welcomed tourism into the area and approached the Governor and State Legislators as well as the Missouri Department of Transportation with the request to “put Kaseyville on the map”. Being denied because the community did not meet the state’s criteria did not deter Mary Elizabeth. A local newspaper printed her story and she hosted a meeting of 23 neighbors and State Representative John Kauffman in her home. Representative Kaufman organized a meeting with the Chief Engineer of the MO Department of Transportation. During that meeting, Mary reported that the MoDOT’s Chief Engineer “threw up his hands and said, ‘I’ll put it on the map!’” And Kaseyville was on the map until just recently.
Putting Kaseyville on the map helped Mary’s customers from all over the United States find their way to her charming “A Mini by Mary” shop of miniature dolls, dollhouses and accessories that she housed in her family room. Both Mary and Wayne delighted in visiting with the new friends the shop brought to their home during the last years they lived in Kaseyville. Each visitor was treated to a piece of Mary’s own special cake and a soda along with a tour of her own miniature collection depicting her childhood, early marriage and motherhood. Long after Mary was unable to continue baking and decorating cakes, she sat up late into the night braiding miniature oval and round rugs that were sold in her dollhouse boutique as well as other area stores and are accenting many a dollhouse today.
Mary Elizabeth did not fear the future. As was her way, she prepared for it. After caring for her own mother as she aged, she took out a nursing home insurance policy for herself and when it was time for her beloved husband to receive additional health care, she accompanied him to live at the facility and was by his side at his passing.
Mary made certain all her affairs were in order, that the farm they worked so hard to acquire was protected from additional taxes and then one day, while visiting her lovely country home, she turned to her newly married granddaughter and pastor’s wife, Kara, and said, “I want you to have my home.” At peace, she returned back to her room at Cedarview Cottage where she often shared Jesus with the staff and insisted they leave her television tuned so she (and they) could hear Billy Graham preach the Word of God. Having taught Sunday School most of her life, she loved to attend the cottage’s Bible Studies led by Pastor Clark Dobbs. And even, as her breathing labored during the last hours of her life, she relaxed as the Word of God was read.
Indeed, her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews and friends rise up and call her blessed. “Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all.”
A memorial service celebrating the life Mrs. Mary Elizabeth (Polite) Britt will be held Wednesday, January 8, 2020 at Kaseyville Baptist Church with the Reverend Ryan Edwards officiating. Burial will be in Oakwood Cemetery in Macon.
For those wishing to honor Mary Elizabeth, the family suggest memorials be contributed to either the Salisbury PTO to purchase books for the children at Salisbury Elementary School or to Samaritan’s Purse, a worldwide ministry to children in need.
Mary Elizabeth grew up in Macon, Missouri, was a graduate of the Macon High School Class of 1941 and earned her 60-hour teaching certificate at Kirksville State Teacher’s College (Truman University) to begin fulfilling her dream of teaching school.
Her career in education began in 1943 at Marceline, Missouri, teaching third graders. In 1945 she returned to Macon and taught first grade in the very same room in which she had learned to read. After taking college classes at KSTC during summers, Mrs. Britt earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education on August 11, 1949. Besides Chanute, Kansas; Mexico, Missouri, Bevier, New Cambria, and the one-room Oak Grove and Kaseyville Schools where she taught all eight grades, she retired from teaching in 1979 at Prairie Hill School, part of the Salisbury R-IV District where she taught first and second grades. She often commented that her favorite class was teaching first graders, with their missing front teeth, how to read. She even developed her own curriculum that included phonics. Dismayed over the 1962 Supreme Court ruling to remove state-sponsored prayer from public schools, Mrs. Britt continued to pray with her classes until in 1971, she was asked to quit the practice. She promptly circulated a petition within the District and was shocked and appalled when one family refused to sign it. Of course, no ruling could inhibit her private prayers for her students, her friends and her family and Mary did pray without ceasing and never failed to encourage even the most troubled who crossed her path.
Mary Elizabeth professed her faith in Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior when she was ten years old and was baptized and became a member of the First Christian Church in Macon. As a Junior High Student, she taught the Beginner Sunday School Class. It was while attending the church’s youth activities during her college years, that Mary met a young man from Richmond, Missouri and agreed to marry him when he returned from World War II. Her fiancé never returned from the war. A few years later, her future sister-in-law, Leona Sherman, introduced Mary Elizabeth to her brother, Wayne Britt. Mary and Wayne dated a couple of years and in her words, “I felt Wayne and I had dated long enough. If I was supposed to marry him, ‘please show me. If not, please shut the door’, I prayed as I knelt beside my bed. At that moment, the phone beside me on the night stand rang. It was Wayne asking me to come back to Chanute, Kansas (where he was farming) and marry him! Now, what would you think?” she asked. “I told him I’d be on the train the next day.” In order to obtain a marriage license over the Labor Day holidays, the pretty strawberry blond school teacher and the dashing Merchant Marine who had returned from WWII to farming traveled to Eureka Springs, Arkansas and were married at the Eureka Springs Baptist Church on September 3rd, 1949. At the time of Wayne’s passing in 2011, the couple had been married 62 ½ years.
After much heartache over many miscarriages, Mary and Wayne became the parents of a son, Randy, whom she called, “our great blessing”. Family, their own little family as well as extended family, was the center of Mary and Wayne Britt’s life. When Randy married Karla Davis in 1973, they accepted Karla as their very own daughter to the extent, that in 2015, after suffering the effects of Alzheimer’s disease for many years, when Mary was told that Karla’s own mother had passed away, she asked, “Now, when did I die?”
The Mary and Wayne Britt family grew from one son and daughter-in-law to three grandchildren and later their spouses: Robin Britt Gebhardt and Jeff; Ryan and Rebecca (Schluter) Britt; and Kara Elizabeth Edwards and Ryan. Mary Elizabeth’s ten great-grandchildren, Jeremiah, Hannah, Abigail and Grace Elizabeth Gebhardt; Lydea, Luke and Lynelle Britt; and EttaLynn Elizabeth, EmmaKate and Justus Edwards, were all present last August 17, to celebrate Mary’s 96th birthday and Mary exclaimed, “What a great party with such a BIG family!”
This schoolteacher/farmwife/mother and grandmother embodied the spirit of the Proverbs 31 lady. Clothed with strength and dignity, Mary did not retire from teaching hundreds of children to read and write and then do nothing. She prepared for her retirement by enrolling in cake decorating classes and then turned her hobby of baking cakes into a ministry, celebrating the lives of friends and family and comforting their sorrows with the “A Cake by Mary means Someone Loves You” stamp included with each delectable and artistic creation. Her secret cake recipe was created with her own cake flavoring which she had state approved and registered with the “Mary Britt Cake Flavoring” label.
As her neighborhood became known for Thomas Hill Lake’s recreational advantages, Mary welcomed tourism into the area and approached the Governor and State Legislators as well as the Missouri Department of Transportation with the request to “put Kaseyville on the map”. Being denied because the community did not meet the state’s criteria did not deter Mary Elizabeth. A local newspaper printed her story and she hosted a meeting of 23 neighbors and State Representative John Kauffman in her home. Representative Kaufman organized a meeting with the Chief Engineer of the MO Department of Transportation. During that meeting, Mary reported that the MoDOT’s Chief Engineer “threw up his hands and said, ‘I’ll put it on the map!’” And Kaseyville was on the map until just recently.
Putting Kaseyville on the map helped Mary’s customers from all over the United States find their way to her charming “A Mini by Mary” shop of miniature dolls, dollhouses and accessories that she housed in her family room. Both Mary and Wayne delighted in visiting with the new friends the shop brought to their home during the last years they lived in Kaseyville. Each visitor was treated to a piece of Mary’s own special cake and a soda along with a tour of her own miniature collection depicting her childhood, early marriage and motherhood. Long after Mary was unable to continue baking and decorating cakes, she sat up late into the night braiding miniature oval and round rugs that were sold in her dollhouse boutique as well as other area stores and are accenting many a dollhouse today.
Mary Elizabeth did not fear the future. As was her way, she prepared for it. After caring for her own mother as she aged, she took out a nursing home insurance policy for herself and when it was time for her beloved husband to receive additional health care, she accompanied him to live at the facility and was by his side at his passing.
Mary made certain all her affairs were in order, that the farm they worked so hard to acquire was protected from additional taxes and then one day, while visiting her lovely country home, she turned to her newly married granddaughter and pastor’s wife, Kara, and said, “I want you to have my home.” At peace, she returned back to her room at Cedarview Cottage where she often shared Jesus with the staff and insisted they leave her television tuned so she (and they) could hear Billy Graham preach the Word of God. Having taught Sunday School most of her life, she loved to attend the cottage’s Bible Studies led by Pastor Clark Dobbs. And even, as her breathing labored during the last hours of her life, she relaxed as the Word of God was read.
Indeed, her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews and friends rise up and call her blessed. “Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all.”
A memorial service celebrating the life Mrs. Mary Elizabeth (Polite) Britt will be held Wednesday, January 8, 2020 at Kaseyville Baptist Church with the Reverend Ryan Edwards officiating. Burial will be in Oakwood Cemetery in Macon.
For those wishing to honor Mary Elizabeth, the family suggest memorials be contributed to either the Salisbury PTO to purchase books for the children at Salisbury Elementary School or to Samaritan’s Purse, a worldwide ministry to children in need.
Mary Elizabeth Polite Britt received her heavenly promotion on January 4, 2020 at the age of 96 years, four months and nine days. Born on August 17, 1923 to Eicle and Ida Bell (Polson) Polite, and the baby sister to Lucile (Jones) and Elsie (Cress) who preceded her in death.
Mary Elizabeth grew up in Macon, Missouri, was a graduate of the Macon High School Class of 1941 and earned her 60-hour teaching certificate at Kirksville State Teacher’s College (Truman University) to begin fulfilling her dream of teaching school.
Her career in education began in 1943 at Marceline, Missouri, teaching third graders. In 1945 she returned to Macon and taught first grade in the very same room in which she had learned to read. After taking college classes at KSTC during summers, Mrs. Britt earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education on August 11, 1949. Besides Chanute, Kansas; Mexico, Missouri, Bevier, New Cambria, and the one-room Oak Grove and Kaseyville Schools where she taught all eight grades, she retired from teaching in 1979 at Prairie Hill School, part of the Salisbury R-IV District where she taught first and second grades. She often commented that her favorite class was teaching first graders, with their missing front teeth, how to read. She even developed her own curriculum that included phonics. Dismayed over the 1962 Supreme Court ruling to remove state-sponsored prayer from public schools, Mrs. Britt continued to pray with her classes until in 1971, she was asked to quit the practice. She promptly circulated a petition within the District and was shocked and appalled when one family refused to sign it. Of course, no ruling could inhibit her private prayers for her students, her friends and her family and Mary did pray without ceasing and never failed to encourage even the most troubled who crossed her path.
Mary Elizabeth professed her faith in Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior when she was ten years old and was baptized and became a member of the First Christian Church in Macon. As a Junior High Student, she taught the Beginner Sunday School Class. It was while attending the church’s youth activities during her college years, that Mary met a young man from Richmond, Missouri and agreed to marry him when he returned from World War II. Her fiancé never returned from the war. A few years later, her future sister-in-law, Leona Sherman, introduced Mary Elizabeth to her brother, Wayne Britt. Mary and Wayne dated a couple of years and in her words, “I felt Wayne and I had dated long enough. If I was supposed to marry him, ‘please show me. If not, please shut the door’, I prayed as I knelt beside my bed. At that moment, the phone beside me on the night stand rang. It was Wayne asking me to come back to Chanute, Kansas (where he was farming) and marry him! Now, what would you think?” she asked. “I told him I’d be on the train the next day.” In order to obtain a marriage license over the Labor Day holidays, the pretty strawberry blond school teacher and the dashing Merchant Marine who had returned from WWII to farming traveled to Eureka Springs, Arkansas and were married at the Eureka Springs Baptist Church on September 3rd, 1949. At the time of Wayne’s passing in 2011, the couple had been married 62 ½ years.
After much heartache over many miscarriages, Mary and Wayne became the parents of a son, Randy, whom she called, “our great blessing”. Family, their own little family as well as extended family, was the center of Mary and Wayne Britt’s life. When Randy married Karla Davis in 1973, they accepted Karla as their very own daughter to the extent, that in 2015, after suffering the effects of Alzheimer’s disease for many years, when Mary was told that Karla’s own mother had passed away, she asked, “Now, when did I die?”
The Mary and Wayne Britt family grew from one son and daughter-in-law to three grandchildren and later their spouses: Robin Britt Gebhardt and Jeff; Ryan and Rebecca (Schluter) Britt; and Kara Elizabeth Edwards and Ryan. Mary Elizabeth’s ten great-grandchildren, Jeremiah, Hannah, Abigail and Grace Elizabeth Gebhardt; Lydea, Luke and Lynelle Britt; and EttaLynn Elizabeth, EmmaKate and Justus Edwards, were all present last August 17, to celebrate Mary’s 96th birthday and Mary exclaimed, “What a great party with such a BIG family!”
This schoolteacher/farmwife/mother and grandmother embodied the spirit of the Proverbs 31 lady. Clothed with strength and dignity, Mary did not retire from teaching hundreds of children to read and write and then do nothing. She prepared for her retirement by enrolling in cake decorating classes and then turned her hobby of baking cakes into a ministry, celebrating the lives of friends and family and comforting their sorrows with the “A Cake by Mary means Someone Loves You” stamp included with each delectable and artistic creation. Her secret cake recipe was created with her own cake flavoring which she had state approved and registered with the “Mary Britt Cake Flavoring” label.
As her neighborhood became known for Thomas Hill Lake’s recreational advantages, Mary welcomed tourism into the area and approached the Governor and State Legislators as well as the Missouri Department of Transportation with the request to “put Kaseyville on the map”. Being denied because the community did not meet the state’s criteria did not deter Mary Elizabeth. A local newspaper printed her story and she hosted a meeting of 23 neighbors and State Representative John Kauffman in her home. Representative Kaufman organized a meeting with the Chief Engineer of the MO Department of Transportation. During that meeting, Mary reported that the MoDOT’s Chief Engineer “threw up his hands and said, ‘I’ll put it on the map!’” And Kaseyville was on the map until just recently.
Putting Kaseyville on the map helped Mary’s customers from all over the United States find their way to her charming “A Mini by Mary” shop of miniature dolls, dollhouses and accessories that she housed in her family room. Both Mary and Wayne delighted in visiting with the new friends the shop brought to their home during the last years they lived in Kaseyville. Each visitor was treated to a piece of Mary’s own special cake and a soda along with a tour of her own miniature collection depicting her childhood, early marriage and motherhood. Long after Mary was unable to continue baking and decorating cakes, she sat up late into the night braiding miniature oval and round rugs that were sold in her dollhouse boutique as well as other area stores and are accenting many a dollhouse today.
Mary Elizabeth did not fear the future. As was her way, she prepared for it. After caring for her own mother as she aged, she took out a nursing home insurance policy for herself and when it was time for her beloved husband to receive additional health care, she accompanied him to live at the facility and was by his side at his passing.
Mary made certain all her affairs were in order, that the farm they worked so hard to acquire was protected from additional taxes and then one day, while visiting her lovely country home, she turned to her newly married granddaughter and pastor’s wife, Kara, and said, “I want you to have my home.” At peace, she returned back to her room at Cedarview Cottage where she often shared Jesus with the staff and insisted they leave her television tuned so she (and they) could hear Billy Graham preach the Word of God. Having taught Sunday School most of her life, she loved to attend the cottage’s Bible Studies led by Pastor Clark Dobbs. And even, as her breathing labored during the last hours of her life, she relaxed as the Word of God was read.
Indeed, her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews and friends rise up and call her blessed. “Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all.”
A memorial service celebrating the life Mrs. Mary Elizabeth (Polite) Britt will be held Wednesday, January 8, 2020 at Kaseyville Baptist Church with the Reverend Ryan Edwards officiating. Burial will be in Oakwood Cemetery in Macon.
For those wishing to honor Mary Elizabeth, the family suggest memorials be contributed to either the Salisbury PTO to purchase books for the children at Salisbury Elementary School or to Samaritan’s Purse, a worldwide ministry to children in need.
Mary Elizabeth grew up in Macon, Missouri, was a graduate of the Macon High School Class of 1941 and earned her 60-hour teaching certificate at Kirksville State Teacher’s College (Truman University) to begin fulfilling her dream of teaching school.
Her career in education began in 1943 at Marceline, Missouri, teaching third graders. In 1945 she returned to Macon and taught first grade in the very same room in which she had learned to read. After taking college classes at KSTC during summers, Mrs. Britt earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education on August 11, 1949. Besides Chanute, Kansas; Mexico, Missouri, Bevier, New Cambria, and the one-room Oak Grove and Kaseyville Schools where she taught all eight grades, she retired from teaching in 1979 at Prairie Hill School, part of the Salisbury R-IV District where she taught first and second grades. She often commented that her favorite class was teaching first graders, with their missing front teeth, how to read. She even developed her own curriculum that included phonics. Dismayed over the 1962 Supreme Court ruling to remove state-sponsored prayer from public schools, Mrs. Britt continued to pray with her classes until in 1971, she was asked to quit the practice. She promptly circulated a petition within the District and was shocked and appalled when one family refused to sign it. Of course, no ruling could inhibit her private prayers for her students, her friends and her family and Mary did pray without ceasing and never failed to encourage even the most troubled who crossed her path.
Mary Elizabeth professed her faith in Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior when she was ten years old and was baptized and became a member of the First Christian Church in Macon. As a Junior High Student, she taught the Beginner Sunday School Class. It was while attending the church’s youth activities during her college years, that Mary met a young man from Richmond, Missouri and agreed to marry him when he returned from World War II. Her fiancé never returned from the war. A few years later, her future sister-in-law, Leona Sherman, introduced Mary Elizabeth to her brother, Wayne Britt. Mary and Wayne dated a couple of years and in her words, “I felt Wayne and I had dated long enough. If I was supposed to marry him, ‘please show me. If not, please shut the door’, I prayed as I knelt beside my bed. At that moment, the phone beside me on the night stand rang. It was Wayne asking me to come back to Chanute, Kansas (where he was farming) and marry him! Now, what would you think?” she asked. “I told him I’d be on the train the next day.” In order to obtain a marriage license over the Labor Day holidays, the pretty strawberry blond school teacher and the dashing Merchant Marine who had returned from WWII to farming traveled to Eureka Springs, Arkansas and were married at the Eureka Springs Baptist Church on September 3rd, 1949. At the time of Wayne’s passing in 2011, the couple had been married 62 ½ years.
After much heartache over many miscarriages, Mary and Wayne became the parents of a son, Randy, whom she called, “our great blessing”. Family, their own little family as well as extended family, was the center of Mary and Wayne Britt’s life. When Randy married Karla Davis in 1973, they accepted Karla as their very own daughter to the extent, that in 2015, after suffering the effects of Alzheimer’s disease for many years, when Mary was told that Karla’s own mother had passed away, she asked, “Now, when did I die?”
The Mary and Wayne Britt family grew from one son and daughter-in-law to three grandchildren and later their spouses: Robin Britt Gebhardt and Jeff; Ryan and Rebecca (Schluter) Britt; and Kara Elizabeth Edwards and Ryan. Mary Elizabeth’s ten great-grandchildren, Jeremiah, Hannah, Abigail and Grace Elizabeth Gebhardt; Lydea, Luke and Lynelle Britt; and EttaLynn Elizabeth, EmmaKate and Justus Edwards, were all present last August 17, to celebrate Mary’s 96th birthday and Mary exclaimed, “What a great party with such a BIG family!”
This schoolteacher/farmwife/mother and grandmother embodied the spirit of the Proverbs 31 lady. Clothed with strength and dignity, Mary did not retire from teaching hundreds of children to read and write and then do nothing. She prepared for her retirement by enrolling in cake decorating classes and then turned her hobby of baking cakes into a ministry, celebrating the lives of friends and family and comforting their sorrows with the “A Cake by Mary means Someone Loves You” stamp included with each delectable and artistic creation. Her secret cake recipe was created with her own cake flavoring which she had state approved and registered with the “Mary Britt Cake Flavoring” label.
As her neighborhood became known for Thomas Hill Lake’s recreational advantages, Mary welcomed tourism into the area and approached the Governor and State Legislators as well as the Missouri Department of Transportation with the request to “put Kaseyville on the map”. Being denied because the community did not meet the state’s criteria did not deter Mary Elizabeth. A local newspaper printed her story and she hosted a meeting of 23 neighbors and State Representative John Kauffman in her home. Representative Kaufman organized a meeting with the Chief Engineer of the MO Department of Transportation. During that meeting, Mary reported that the MoDOT’s Chief Engineer “threw up his hands and said, ‘I’ll put it on the map!’” And Kaseyville was on the map until just recently.
Putting Kaseyville on the map helped Mary’s customers from all over the United States find their way to her charming “A Mini by Mary” shop of miniature dolls, dollhouses and accessories that she housed in her family room. Both Mary and Wayne delighted in visiting with the new friends the shop brought to their home during the last years they lived in Kaseyville. Each visitor was treated to a piece of Mary’s own special cake and a soda along with a tour of her own miniature collection depicting her childhood, early marriage and motherhood. Long after Mary was unable to continue baking and decorating cakes, she sat up late into the night braiding miniature oval and round rugs that were sold in her dollhouse boutique as well as other area stores and are accenting many a dollhouse today.
Mary Elizabeth did not fear the future. As was her way, she prepared for it. After caring for her own mother as she aged, she took out a nursing home insurance policy for herself and when it was time for her beloved husband to receive additional health care, she accompanied him to live at the facility and was by his side at his passing.
Mary made certain all her affairs were in order, that the farm they worked so hard to acquire was protected from additional taxes and then one day, while visiting her lovely country home, she turned to her newly married granddaughter and pastor’s wife, Kara, and said, “I want you to have my home.” At peace, she returned back to her room at Cedarview Cottage where she often shared Jesus with the staff and insisted they leave her television tuned so she (and they) could hear Billy Graham preach the Word of God. Having taught Sunday School most of her life, she loved to attend the cottage’s Bible Studies led by Pastor Clark Dobbs. And even, as her breathing labored during the last hours of her life, she relaxed as the Word of God was read.
Indeed, her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews and friends rise up and call her blessed. “Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all.”
A memorial service celebrating the life Mrs. Mary Elizabeth (Polite) Britt will be held Wednesday, January 8, 2020 at Kaseyville Baptist Church with the Reverend Ryan Edwards officiating. Burial will be in Oakwood Cemetery in Macon.
For those wishing to honor Mary Elizabeth, the family suggest memorials be contributed to either the Salisbury PTO to purchase books for the children at Salisbury Elementary School or to Samaritan’s Purse, a worldwide ministry to children in need.
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