Mary Allison Obituary

Mary Allison of Elmhurst, passed away May 3, 2009 in Carmel, Indiana surrounded by her loving family after a courageous eight year battle with breast cancer. She was born Mary Ruby Drake on May 12, 1935 in Pines, Indiana. Mary went to a one-room school house in the Pines, was a graduate and homecoming queen of Elston High School in Michigan City, IN before graduating from Taylor University in Upland, Ind. She was an elementary school teacher before finding her calling as a stay-at-home mom for her six children. She was a funny, generous, loyal friend, a voracious reader, a wonderful cook, and a ruthlessly competitive bridge player. Anyone who walked through her door was immediately treated like family and she was a "second mom" to so many of her children's friends, neighborhood children as well as her nieces and nephews. Her favorite music was the laughter of children and she firmly believed a house was not a home unless there were children running through it. She is survived by her loving husband of 52 years, Dr. Ben D. Allison and her six children: Nancy (Mike) Worley of Louisville, KY, Sharon (Scott) Thiems of Indianapolis, Susan (Bobby) Bruns of Americus, GA, Ben (Ann) Allison, Jr. of Louisville, KY , Margaret Allison of Elmhurst and Elizabeth (Matt) Pusateri of Lombard. She is also survived by her 14 grandchildren, all of whom she thought to be gifted, beautiful and perfectly behaved (for her): Alec and Holly Smith; Tyler, Allison and Derek Thiems; Heidi and Eric Bruns; Katie Nagar and Olivia Allison; Hannah, Drake and Mattie Pusateri and Max Allison and Isabelle Loehman. She is also survived by her sisters Norma Jean Appleberry and Edwina Anderson. She was preceded in death by her parents Edwin and Mildred Drake, brothers David and Donald Drake and nephew Donald Bert Drake. Services will be held at Ahlgrim Funeral Home, 567 Spring Rd, Elmhurst at 11 a.m. Friday, May 8, 2009 with a celebration of her life to follow at a luncheon at White Pines Country Club 500 W. Jefferson, Bensenville. In lieu of flowers, Mary wished for her friends and family to donate toward her daughter, Maggie's Three Day Walk to Cure Breast Cancer by pledging donations toward Maggie Allison at www.The3Day.org.