Mary A. Yturria, the longtime philanthropist for which Yturria Elementary School in Brownsville is named along with her late husband Frank, passed away Tuesday at her Brownsville residence.
Funeral services are pending and will be announced through Darling Mouser Funeral Home of Brownsville, the family said.
Frank Yturria, the well known Brownsville rancher, oilman, conservationist, public servant and philanthropist, passed away in November 2018. They met in Brownsville when she was a stewardess for Pan American Airways and were married on May 9, 1947, her birthday.
“My mother was a one-of-a-kind wonder, she was a trailblazer,” their daughter Dorothy Yturria Hablinski said by phone Wednesday on her way back to Brownsville for services.
“She cared about humanity and she cared about America. She was very concerned about the direction America is going. She really taught me everything I know. It’s a huge blow. Even though she was almost 98, it was a blow to all of our family. She was the ultimate matriarch.”
Among many contributions to Brownsville, Mary Yturria was instrumental in bringing the first ambulance service to the city and was a founder in 1971 of Villa Bethany, a home for unwed mothers.
She also directly funded refurbishment of the fountain and construction of the bandstand in Washington Park, Brownsville historian Eugene Fernandez said. Fernandez and Yturria had been close personal friends for the past 25 years.
“From the time Mary Yturria arrived in Brownsville in the later part of the 1940s, she embraced the culture and the citizens of the Lower Rio Grande Valley border zone,” Fernandez wrote in a statement to The Herald.
“She extended from a landed Southern family with deep origins in Alabama. Building upon the political and commercial connections of the pioneer Yturria family, she quickly set about contributing her energies and astute organizational capabilities toward social causes that this area was in dire need of developing, whether it had been the need to provide shelter for unwed mothers, the destitute, the dysfunctional family units, and also for historical preservation,” Fernandez wrote.
“Coming from an old, established society, she respected history and was fascinated by the depth of heritage that her new South Texas home possessed. Mrs. Yturria was always at the forefront on committees that either she personally organized or that reached out to her on her reputation. We will never know the full extent of her behind-the-scenes involvement in a collaborative effort, lending her talents and humanity to worthy projects.”
Fernandez said many historical assets in the area “have her fingerprints all over them: namely: The Washington Park Fountain and Bandstand, the Historic Samuel Brooks House, the Southern Pacific Depot, the Padre Balli Statue on South Padre Island, and the Old Point Isabel Coast Guard Station, just to cite a few examples.”
Dr. Kazim Hussain, a Brownsville physician and longtime friend, said Mary Yturria regarded it as her personal obligation to do philanthropic work for the people of the Valley.
“She was a universal human being. By that I mean she had a passionate love for everyone. She was just an amazing woman who has done so much for Brownsville,” Hussain said.
“When I see her, she was always smiling. I see her beautiful welcoming face. …I’m going to miss that,” he said.
