Mary Alice Stout

• Interviewed in 2020 and 2022

Mary Alice Stout, born 1945, grew up in Georgia; Mississippi; Washington, D.C.; and Tennessee, as her father changed jobs. She graduated high school in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. She went to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, earning a bachelor’s degree in science education and a master’s degree in botany. She taught high school biology in Clinton, Tennessee, for ten years.

Mary Alice Stout met Ellen Spangler through a mutual friend in Knoxville. At the time, Mary Alice was the executive director of the Knox County Education Association, a job that required lobbying for Knox County teachers and negotiating contracts. Mary Alice left that job, moving to South Carolina to be with Ellen Spangler in December 1989, on her forty-fourth birthday.

Mary Alice Stout’s first job in South Carolina was working for the 1990 census, which she enjoys doing, as she has done it ever since. She never looked for another job in education, and she had not taught since her job with the Tennessee Education Association. In South Carolina, she worked at one thing and another, especially helping to remodel the house at Starcrest, including adding a classroom. She also likes gardening. Mary Alice Stout and Ellen Spangler took a cross-country trip in a camping van during one year, and they went all the way to Alaska.

Mary Alice Stout worked with Ellen Spangler to build their earth-sheltered house when they moved to Alapine, Alabama. Mary Alice excelled at finding building materials at a good price or sometimes, for barter. They were also part of Mountain Mama’s, which was a collective, selling on consignment women’s crafts and art, operating out of an old motel in nearby Cloudland, Georgia.