By Rebecca Goodman
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Mary Anne Walters, a third-grade teacher at Terrace Park Elementary from 1965 until her retirement in 1980, died Sunday at Pardee Memorial Hospital in Hendersonville, N.C., after a brief illness.

She was 85.

Mrs. Walters, a native of Lima, Ohio, was educated in the public schools there and graduated from Lima Central High in 1936. A gifted pianist, she began giving public performances at age 11.

She received an associate's degree in elementary education from Miami University in Oxford, a bachelor's degree in elementary education from Ohio Northern University in Ada and a master's degree in psychology from Xavier University.

She began teaching third grade in Lima in 1953. She moved to Terrace Park with her husband, John, in 1964.

They moved to Hendersonville in 1980.

Mrs. Walters was a member of Chapter O of the P.E.O. Sisterhood and Trinity Presbyterian Church in Hendersonville, where she sang with the choir.

Her husband of 59 years died in 2000.

Survivors include two sons, David of Hendersonville and Richard of Boone, N.C.; and two grandsons.

A memorial service is 2 p.m. Friday at Trinity Presbyterian Church, 900 Blythe St., Hendersonville.

Memorials: United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation, 8085 Saltzburg Road, Suite 201, Pittsburgh, PA 15239.

E-mail rgoodman@enquirer.com