Mary Jean Saulters, 96, of Hattiesburg, passed away on Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, at Windham House.

Funeral services were held at 3 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, at Heritage Church with visitation from 1 p.m. until 2:45 p.m.

On Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, the family received friends from 9 a.m. until 10 a.m. at Saulters-Moore Funeral Home in Prentiss followed by words of remembrance.

Interment was held in Prentiss Cemetery.

Mary Jean Crews was born on March 27, 1928, in a house on Pearl Street on the west side of Hattiesburg.

In her early school years, she attended The Demonstration School on the campus of State Teachers College, now the University of Southern Mississippi.

While her family lived in Hattiesburg, they attended Broad Street Methodist Church, which would later become Heritage Church.

Her family moved to the Oak Grove area, where her grandmother, “Granny Crews,” owned and ran the general store.

Mary Jean and her family attended Oak Grove Methodist Church, a church that Granny Crews was instrumental in starting.

After her father accepted a job as one of the first managers of Pearl River Rural Electric, now Pearl River Valley EPA, the family moved to Columbia where she graduated from Columbia High School in 1945.

In the fall of 1945, she enrolled at Pearl River Junior College in Poplarville where she attended until 1947, and where she met her future husband LaRue Saulters, of Carson.

After graduating from Pearl River, she enrolled in Mississippi Southern College in Hattiesburg.

She graduated from Mississippi Southern in 1949 and married LaRue in August of that year.

The couple lived in Sumrall, with both teaching at Sumrall High School, for one year.

They then moved to Prentiss where LaRue joined his father operating Saulters Funeral Home.

She began teaching typing, shorthand and bookkeeping at Prentiss High School in 1950 and continued until the late 1950’s.

Mary Jean left teaching when the couple’s daughter Susan was born in 1959.

She continued as a dedicated stay-at-home mother, later giving birth to her son David in 1967.

During their time in Prentiss, the couple and their children were members of Prentiss United Methodist Church where Mary Jean was involved in the choir, Sunday School and with the United Methodist Women among other things.

The couple enjoyed entertaining their friends in Prentiss and traveling, often following the Southern Miss Golden Eagles football and basketball teams.

After LaRue’s death in 1996, Mary Jean moved back to her birthplace of Hattiesburg in 1998, living her last 24 years in Oak Grove and attending Heritage Church.

At Heritage, as in Prentiss, she was heavily involved with the choir, her Sunday School class and various women’s groups.

She loved spending time with her children, later her children’s children and later her children’s children’s children, to include a standing weekly appointment with them during her last years living at Windham House.

Even during the COVID year of 2020, the family would gather outside her room where Mary Jean could watch the great grandchildren play through the glass door.

Mary Jean was an excellent seamstress, enjoying all forms of needlework, including making clothes and costumes.

In her later years, she was instrumental in Heritage Church’s Humble Hands Prayer Shawl ministry, crocheting at least 285 shawls that were prayed over and ultimately given to people all over the world.

Throughout her life, Mary Jean loved not only her many friends, but also casual acquaintances.

She had a way of seeing value in each person, and everyone who encountered her left feeling they were better for having known her.

She was preceded in death by her husband, LaRue Saulters.

She is survived by her children, Susan Saulters Perry (Ricky) of Hattiesburg and David Saulters (Christa) of Hattiesburg; her grandchildren, Laura Ewoldt (Ethan), Mary Godbold (David), Sarai Bailey Saulters, Jacob McNeese (Aubrey), Anna Marie Bonner (Cody), Kate McNeese, Hallie Crews Saulters, Emma Saulters, and Jana Saulters; her great grandchildren, Samuel Ewoldt, Caleb Ewoldt, Conner Godbold, Madelyn Godbold, Sarai Arryn Mease, Haley McNeese, Ava LaRue Bonner, Nellah Reese Bonner, and Elsie Kate Bonner; her brother, Lawrence Crews (Dorris) of Metairie, Louisiana; her sister, Rebecca Polk of Columbia and numerous nieces and nephews.