Marylee Kellogg Obituary

Marylee Cowden Kellogg
05/04/1931 - 09/16/2023
Dallas - Marylee Cowden Kellogg passed away peacefully at home in Dallas on September 16, 2023, surrounded by her family and long-term caregivers. She was 92. "Like most of you," she wrote after her children were grown, "some of my dreams came true, some didn't, however I am still dreaming and hope you are too." Love of travel and reading (another way to travel and dream) marked her whole full life, but above all else, she radiated love of family.
Marylee Cowden on her May 4, 1931 Midland, Texas birth certificate, she was "Mumzy" to friends and "BooBoo" to her family. (BooBoo's older brother, Guy Tom Cowden of Santa Rosa, NM, was known as "Rooster" and her older sister, Eugenia Ann Cowden Pettit of New Orleans, was called "Tootsie." The family all knew who was who, though others could get confused.) With her late husband, Walter Clement Kellogg, Mumzy had five children: Lea Kellogg Barfield, Ann Kellogg Schooler, Guy Kellogg, Luke Kellogg, and Abbie Kellogg Milisci. She is also survived by thirteen grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and a host of friends and admirers.
The Ernest Tubb song "Waltz Across Texas" might apply to Marylee/Mumzy/BooBoo, who was raised on a West Texas cattle ranch before moving to Midland for school, to Austin to attend the University of Texas where she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, to Houston to work as an agent for Pan American Airlines, to Amarillo after her marriage to Walter Kellogg, and eventually to Dallas. Some steps of her waltzing deserve details.
Her first years, as the youngest child of Guy Cowden and Annie Mae (Patterson) Cowden, were on a family ranch. "I was about twelve years old," she once wrote, "before I knew it was possible to wish for anything besides rain on a birthday cake." While her older brother and sister had a governess out on the ranch for their early education, Annie Mae ("Mushy") moved the children seventy-five miles into more "civilized" Midland once BooBoo started school-her potential was evident early.
"After graduation from MHS [Midland High School]," recalled BooBoo, "I attended girls' school in Gulfport, Miss. to learn to be a lady and on to Texas University to forget it." Throughout her life, BooBoo would flash such wit along with her great elegance. This charming combination no doubt attracted the attentions of Walter Kellogg, a bright and lively soul himself, "the most interesting man [she] ever met." Together they danced for
fifty years, raising five children in Amarillo before moving to Dallas. They also operated a ranch in northern New Mexico.
"I love each of you deeply and equally," wrote BooBoo to her adult children, all of whom inherited her intelligence and wit. (In an email conversation among themselves after BooBoo died, one wrote, "Guy was her favorite. -Anonymous.") She guided them all toward their best selves, and families of their own, which include spouses Matt Schooler, Laura Kellogg, Estee Kellogg, and Chris Milisci (deceased) as well as BooBoo's grandchildren Bo Barfield, Annabel Barfield Nguyen, Mary Cristina Schooler, Sam Schooler, Emily Kellogg, Kathryn Kellogg, Guy Tom Kellogg, C.C. Kellogg, Coley Kellogg, Tom Kellogg, Max Milisci, Josie Milisci, and Guy Milisci. Once BooBoo's father, "Big Guy," proudly remarked, "Twelve grandkids, and not an idiot in the bunch!" The same goes for BooBoo's thirteen, all of whom will carry Marylee Cowden Kellogg's example of grace, good humor, and love with them into the future.
BooBoo kept nearby a passage from Paul Horgan's Pulitzer Prize-winning Great River that expresses her dreams and how she saw the world: "Children were desired and cherished and given all that their families could give, of things and powers and certainties. The blessings of life came from the parents, the ancestors, to whom gratitude and veneration were due. On the hot afternoons of the summer when the sky blue had golden shimmers over it from the heat, and the cottonwoods were breathless and the river ran depleted in and out of their shade, there rose on the hot silver distance the big afternoon rain clouds, with their white billows and black airy shadows. They had promise and blessing in them-rain and life. The people pointed to them and said to the children with love and thanks, 'Your grandfathers are coming.'"
The family asks that those who wish to honor her life and memory make charitable contributions to UT Southwestern Medical Center, care of the Peter O'Donnell Jr. Brain Institute, Dallas, Texas, 214-648-2344.