Margaret O’Bryan Brodnax

Margaret O’Bryan Brodnax

1932-2013

Margaret O’Bryan Brodnax died March 30, 2013, at home, in Oklahoma City. A memorial service will be held at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Edmond, Saturday, April 6, at 10 o’clock, with visitation after the service. Margaret’s ashes are to be interred at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Birmingham, Alabama.

Born September 26, 1932, to Willie Graves and Edgar Ray O’Bryan in Cleveland County, Arkansas, Margaret attended public schools in Little Rock and Pine Bluff; received a BSEd, University of Central Arkansas, Conway, and MA and PhD in English Literature at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth; and did postdoctoral work at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. She taught at Texas Technological University, Lubbock; Texas Christian University; University of Louisiana at Monroe; Anhui Normal University, Wuhu, China; and Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama, where she ended her thirty-eight year teaching career as Professor of English Emeritus. She was very happy to have served on the advisory board of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival of Anniston, and later Montgomery, Alabama.

Retiring in Birmingham, then Diamondhead, Mississippi, Margaret continued writing and editing. After Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast in 2005, she and her husband, Charles T. Brodnax, relocated near their daughter Mary Brodnax, son-in-law Hans Rudolf Nollert, and grandson Theodore Rudolf Brodnax Nollert, all of Edmond. Margaret was predeceased by a son, Faulkner Eugene Brodnax, and her siblings Elizabeth White, Alonzo O’Bryan, Pauline May, Robbie Kemper, and Gordon O’Bryan. She is survived by her brother Harold O’Bryan and his wife Mary Jo, brother-in-law Charles Kemper, sister-in-law Nell O’Bryan, and many nieces, nephews, and cousins. Surviving is also her dearest friend, Lucille Crosby Hendrix, of Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

Margaret served in various Christian churches as pianist, organist, and chorister, in the church schools on many levels, and as eucharistic minister and lay reader in the Episcopal church. She was an active member of Delta Kappa Gamma, an honorary society of women educators, and of Phi Kappa Phi, a national honorary society. In Edmond she was delighted to make new friends with the women of the Edmond PEO, Chapter D, and the local chapter of Sigma Sigma Sigma, as well as among Oak Hollow neighbors and the parishioners of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church of Edmond.

The family would like to thank Dr. Brian Levy, MDVIP, Good Shepherd Hospice, and Companion at Home. Memorial gifts may be made to the Margaret O. Brodnax Scholarship Fund at Samford University, Office of University Advancement, 800 Lakeshore Drive, Birmingham, Alabama 35229, or to The American Parkinson Disease Association (Parkinson Plaza; 135 Parkinson avenue; Staten Island, NY 10305-1425 or http://action.apdaparkinson.org). The family requests no flowers.