Mary Lynn Lander
Chatham High School
1966
Mary Lynn Lander
Chatham High School
1966
I am one of Mary Lynn's drama students at Chatham High School 1965–67. — Mary Lynn saw potential in an unlikely group of students and turned us into a respectable troupe of actors. She cast us in roles in comedic melodrama and theatre of the absurd, transforming some of us into characters in her own original award-winning Arthur in Wonderland. During the summer of 1967, Mary Lynn herself captured the hearts of Southside Virginia when she brilliantly played the romantic leading lady, opposite Jerry Wyatt, in Frances Hallam Hurt's outdoor drama Land of the Bright Leaf.
Mary Lynn was an all-important personal mentor to me. We somewhat seriously called each other big sister / little sister, we had so much in common, including fathers who were military school athletic coaches of long mutual acquaintance (Frank Lander at Staunton Military Academy and John Beaver at Hargrave Military Academy). My husband Henry and I last visited Mary Lynn in her Roanoke apartment in early 1969. Later that year we were off to Henry's Air Force assignments, and soon, from far away, we discovered that our contact information for Mary Lynn no longer worked. Our intermittent attempts through 48 years to locate her only succeeded now, the result of one more web search. I am heartbroken that she is gone, but gratified to know that she had a good life and loving family, whom I pray the Lord will bless and comfort with warm memories.
This website is sponsored by Mitchells Publications, Chatham, Virginia.