Mary Wrike

Louise was born in Washington, DC, in 1946, an early “baby boomer” and the middle child of the late Catherine Ellen McCune and Charles Aloyisus Horan. She was raised in Bethesda (Maryland), went to Our Lady of Lourdes School, and graduated from Holy Cross High School. A dozen classmates from Lourdes and Holy Cross remained together throughout Louise’s lifetime in the casual sorority FFPO. Louise went to the Dunbarton College of the Holy Cross, in Washington, DC, and majored in education and bridge. She graduated in May 1968, in August married Pete (her husband for the next 52+ years), and in September began teaching at Weller Road Elementary School in Montgomery County, Maryland. While teaching she attended the American University in Washington, DC, and earned her Master’s degree in Education in August, 1972. Louise and Pete’s first child, Chris, was born in December, 1972.

Looking to their future, ten days after Chris’s birth, Louise and Pete bought 6 acres on Cobbs Creek, in Mathews County, Virginia. Louise and Pete designed their Virginia home, and in 1974 hired contractors, and rented rooms at nearby “Pine Hall” to monitor their home’s progress. On Louise’s 29th birthday in May 1975, the Wrikes moved into their new home, “Cottonwood,” at the end of a mile long dirt road off County Route 629. Louise left teaching at Weller Road, and Pete sought more “flexible” employment. In November, 1975, Louise gave birth to daughter Katie in Newport News, Virginia. (Pete arrived from Maryland at the hospital ten minutes before Louise’s doctor – and Katie, delivered by a resident intern.) Louise with her two young children, adjusted to her virtually water surrounded rural county of 7,000 persons, made friends, and furnished and decorated their new home.

Louise and Pete joined St. Therese’s Parish Church and the Mathews Yacht Club. (Meanwhile the University of Maryland hired Pete as both Faculty and Staff with a four day workweek schedule serving their campuses in 8 states and 52 countries.) No local public Kindergarten existed, but Louise found a great private one for Chris and later Katie. Daughter Sarah arrived at Virginia’s new hospital in Kilmarnock in September 1978, and Chris began the First Grade at the Cobbs Creek Elementary School. From 1979 to 1983 Louise (and Pete) worked tirelessly with Father Jack Dougher of Gloucester County’s St. Therese’s Parish Church, and created the mission church that in 1983 became Mathews County’s Francis de Sales Catholic Church. A master calligrapher and businesswoman, in 1980 Louise opened “Cottonwood Galleries” in Gloucester County on weekends. Louise ran the Gallery, except briefly after daughter Thea’s birth in 1982, for seven years. Louise returned to teach as a Mathews County Home School teacher, and then at Gloucester County’s Peasley Elementary School, and studied at UVA. In 1990 Louise accepted a great offer from a new Mathews County start-up company, Satellite Communications. Satellite grew swiftly and Louise went to their new Hampton offices and commuted with Pete (teaching at Norfolk’s Old Dominion University.) While Louise was at Satellite, Chris went to UVA, Katie went to William & Mary, and Sarah went to William & Mary.

In 1998 Thea was in Mathews High School and Pete returned to Colonial Williamsburg. Louise left Satellite and joined Sea Farms on Milford Haven, run by fellow churchgoers. Thea went to James Madison University in 2000, and Louise joined Colonial Williamsburg. She became Secretary to the Vice-President of Education and Rockefeller Library Director. Louise often worked evenings in period costume in the Historic Area, at sites and in roles with people she loved immensely. (On many occasions schedulers paired Louise and Pete in the same program.) In 2013 Louise retired from Colonial Williamsburg, and always an avid gardener, became a Mathews – Middlesex Master Gardener. Louise continued making delicious cuisine and remodeled her home. Since their honeymoon Louise and Pete (and kids) vacationed somewhere every year. Her last big trips, before 2020, were Canada’s Maritimes and Key West.

Louise loved her Pete, children, grandchildren, siblings, kin, friends, gardeners, home, church, community, and her FFPO sisters. Cancer took brilliant, tasteful, clever, and beautiful Louise during Epiphany, at home, holding Pete’s hand. Louise leaves husband Pete, son Chris in Kill Devil Hills on NC’s Outer Banks, daughter Katie Preisser, her husband Mark, and their children Brigid, Clare, and Maeve, in Southern Shores on NC’s Outer Banks, daughter Sarah in Columbia, Maryland, and daughter Thea Jaskolka, her husband John, and their children Mathew, Zack, and Alice in Wake Forest, North Carolina. Louise is survived by her older sister Janet Haughey, her husband Dick, and their daughter Joanna, in Charleston, South Carolina, her older brother Terry in Charleston, South Carolina, her younger sister Kay Behrens, and her husband Jon in Longmont, Colorado, and their children Mat, Dan, and Catherine, and her younger brother Jim and his wife Christine, and their children Max and Alana in Leland, North Carolina.

Louise will be interred at Francis de Sales’ Columbarium in May. Memorials in Louise’s name may be sent to Francis de Sales Catholic Church.