Defiance educator was psychologist

2/22/2002

DEFIANCE - Marie E. Kauser, 82, an educator and school psychologist in Defiance County schools who was on a regional mental health board, died Monday in Sarasota Memorial Hospital, Sarasota, Fla.

She died from injuries suffered in a fall Feb. 15 at a church rummage sale in Englewood, Fla., her son, Dennis, said. She was an Englewood resident about 15 years. She and her husband, Willis “Earl” Kauser, returned every summer to visit their farm along the Maumee River in Delaware Township.

Mr. Kauser died Nov. 18, 2001.

Mrs. Kauser retired in 1985 after 30 years as an educator, the last 10 years as a psychologist in the Defiance City Schools.

The late-career switch from classroom teaching to school psychologist “was similar to a lot of things she did,” her son said. “She was never one to shrink from a challenge.”

She enjoyed her work so much that she took on part-time duties during summers spent back home, her son said.

Much of her career was as a second-grade teacher at Sherwood Elementary School in the Central Local Schools.

“Everywhere you go, you run into someone who had my mother,” said her daughter, MariJenelle Showalter, a high school algebra and calculus teacher in Venice, Fla., whose choice of work was inspired by her mother. “I saw that she worked very hard at it and made an impact on kids' lives and still [had] a family,” her daughter said. “She spent a lot of time with us and encouraged us. That's what I wanted in life.”

Toward the end of her teaching career, her son noted, “She was teaching children of children she had taught.”

Mrs. Kauser was a former board member of the Four County Mental Health Board. She was a member of the Ohio Psychologist Association.

She grew up on a farm in Paulding County's Emerald Township and was a graduate of Defiance High School.

She received her teaching certificate from what is now Bowling Green State University. She later received a bachelor's degree and, in 1965, received a master's degree in school psychology from St. Francis College, Fort Wayne, Ind.

She was a member of Alpha Delta Kappa, the Business Women's Club of Sherwood, and the Defiance County Retired Teachers Association.

She and her husband married June 7, 1940.

Surviving are her son, Dennis Kauser; daughter, MariJenelle Showalter; four grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

The body will be in the Mast-Mock-Hoffman Mortuary, Defiance, after 2 p.m. today. Services will be at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow in St. Stephen Church, Delaware Bend, Ohio.

The family requests tributes to the Marie E. Kauser scholarship fund at Defiance High School.