Mary Elizabeth Reed Hoyer

Mary Elizabeth Reed Hoyer, 97, of Simpsonville, South Carolina passed away at the Summit Place Living Center in Simpsonville on Friday, December 17, 2010.

Mary Hoyer was born on February 6, 1913 in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Joseph Levi Reed and Lizzie Treon Reed. She was a graduate of Shamokin High School and attended the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago for a short time. She married Robert Bevan Hoyer in 1936, and they moved with their family to Hendersonville, North Carolina in 1951.

In Hendersonville, Mary Hoyer had a small drapery business and worked for many years in the retail apparel business on Main Street.

For more than fifty years she was a member of the Hendersonville Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star. She was elected to the positions of Worthy Matron and Grand Representative to the State of Maine.

She and her husband, Robert, loved the Southern Appalachians and spent many years exploring the mountains. He passed away in 1975, and Ms. Hoyer moved to Simpsonville in 2004. There she was a member of the Mauldin United Methodist Church.

Mary Hoyer was an accomplished seamstress, and enjoyed sewing, quilting, knitting, and needlepoint. She was a dedicated and energetic gardener, a voracious reader, and she loved to cook, constantly experimenting with new recipes. She kept family and friends supplied with a seemingly endless parade of ceramic figures of her own creation. Perhaps of all of her hobbies, she most enjoyed word, card, and table games, and got a great deal of pleasure from besting the male members of her family.

She was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, three brothers, Chester Otto Reed, James Gilbert Reed, and John Martin Reed; and one sister, Susan Lenore Reed Protheroe.

Mary Hoyer is survived by her sisters and close friends, Dorothy Janet Reed Noll of Port Charlotte, Florida and Natalie Irene Reed Ritchey of Martinsburg, Pennsylvania. She is also survived by her son, Robert William Hoyer of Winchester, Virginia; her daughter and son-in-law, Charlotte Elizabeth and Robert Williamson Zerfoss of Simpsonville; four grandchildren, Marsha Jane Zerfoss Ferrell (Phil) of Simpsonville, Judith Anne Zerfoss Verhoeven (Eric) of Greenville, South Carolina, Brooke Bevan Youngblood Hoyer (Nicholette) of Vancouver, Washington, and Reed Andrew Tanguay Hoyer (Jennifer) of Ann Arbor, Michigan; and five great-grandchildren, Sadie Anne Ferrell and Abigail Elizabeth Ferrell of Simpsonville, Aaron Miles Zerfoss Verhoeven of Greenville, and Finnegan Bear Hoyer and Frost Beck Hoyer of Vancouver. She is also survived by her very close friends Kathy and Howard Jacobus of Hendersonville and by many nephews and nieces.

The family suggests that donations may be made to Meals on Wheels of Greenville County, 15 Oregon Street, Greenville, SC 29605 (http://www.mealsonwheelsgreenville.org).

A memorial service will be held on Thursday, December 23 at 2:00 p.m. at Mauldin United Methodist Church with Senior Pastor, the Reverend Smoke Kanipe, officiating.