Mary Lou (Myers) Farr

MARY LOU (MYERS) FARR

Mary Lou (Myers) Farr of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, passed away peacefully on June 10, 2025. Mary Lou was a woman of deep faith with an adventurous spirit, a quick intelligence and great charm.

Mary Lou was born on February 4, 1929, in Pleasant Hill, Missouri, the oldest of three children. In 1939, her family moved to Clinton, Missouri, where they lived until Mary Lou’s sophomore year of high school. They moved back to Pleasant Hill, and Mary Lou graduated from high school there. At age 17 Mary Lou was at a dance, and looking across the room saw the man of her dreams. Even though she didn’t meet him that night, when she got home from the dance she woke her parents and told them she had seen the man she was going to marry. Three years later, in 1949, she married that man, Wilson (Dick) LeRoy Farr. Theirs was a love story that lasted a lifetime, until in 2020 at the age of 94 Dick passed away.

One of Mary Lou’s dreams as a young woman was to be able to travel the world. That dream came true. In 1966, Dick came home and said his employer, Standard Oil Company, wanted to send him to Egypt to open up a new oil field. Without a second thought Mary Lou and Dick packed up their three young daughters and began a life of travel that literally took them around the world. They lived in Cairo, Egypt for 4 ½ years, through 2 wars which Mary Lou took in her stride. She was busy in Cairo teaching Sunday School, starring in and directing community theater productions, taking Great Books courses with Dick, and touring the Near East. One trip she took to Mount Sinai required her to do physical training for six months and resulted in her appearance in National Geographic magazine climbing the mountain.

In June 1967, Mary Lou and the girls were evacuated to Athens, Greece, leaving Cairo on the last plane before the airport was destroyed in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. During the time they were in Greece the government was unstable and the US Embassy had advised Americans to be sure they had bags in the car ready to head for Yugoslavia if a coup occurred. Again, Mary Lou was unphased. Instead of worrying about civil unrest, Mary Lou took full advantage of her time in Greece. There for only six months, Mary Lou joined the American Club and began organizing sightseeing trips for other evacuees to the Greek Islands, Delphi and other classical sights.

In 1970, Mary Lou and family were transferred to the Netherlands, where they lived in The Hague. There for 3 years, there was hardly a country in western Europe they didn’t explore. In 1973 they moved to Tehran, Iran. Mary Lou traveled to ancient Persian sights in Iran, then became a tour guide with the American Women’s Club, taking tours to Russia, back to Egypt and to Afghanistan. Taking advantage of being so far east, at Mary Lou’s instigation they traveled through Asia, visiting India, Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong. Finally, in 1977 Dick was transferred back to the U.S. Though he and Mary Lou would visit Europe again as tourists, they never lived overseas again.

Mary Lou loved the natural wonders and historical sights she saw during her travels, but if you ask about her best memories they were always of encounters she had with the people who lived there. She was never shy about talking to strangers and would ask the most personal questions of people, who would answer truthfully and smile. She loved to laugh and made others laugh, not at anything in particular she said, but just in response to her exuberant spirit.

On Dick’s retirement in 1985, he and Mary Lou moved to Harrisonville, Missouri. All of their daughters had settled near there, and their house became the hub of family activities. There was hardly a ballgame, dance competition or music recital that they missed, and the grandchildren’s much looked-forward-to summer vacations meant staying with Grandma and Grandpa in Harrisonville for a week or two.

Mary Lou taught her daughters by example that they could accomplish anything they wanted, and to value people from all different backgrounds. Right up until the days before she died, Mary Lou was present for her children and grandchildren in a profound way. Her grandson, writing about her at age 11, said this: “One of the reasons I admire my grandma is: she is always there for me, and if I ever have a question she always has an answer…She has inspired me to do a lot of things I didn’t think I could do. She is more than just my grandma, she is my good friend too.”

Mary Lou was preceded in death by her husband, Dick Farr, her parents Earl B. and Hazel Myers, her brother Dr. Earl B. Myers, Jr., and many brothers and sisters-in-law, all of whom she loved deeply.

She is survived by her daughters Lou Ann Johnson, Earlene Gordon and Linda Vaughn (and son-in-law Dave), and her grandchildren Mary Wells (and husband David), Whitney Vaughn, Blake Vaughn (and wife Kelsie), and Miranda Jarnevic (and husband Luke), and by 10 great-grandchildren. She is also survived by her beloved sister Travis Marie Greenwell, as well as by many dear nieces and nephews.

A graveside service will be held on Monday, June 23, 2025, at 2:00pm, at the Pleasant Hill Cemetery, 1501 N. State Route 7, Pleasant Hill, Missouri.

The family requests that in lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in Mary Lou’s memory to the Salvation Army, or to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.