Mary Jane Ramsey Dickson

On March 26, 2025, Dr. Mary Jane Ramsey Dickson departed this life to enter into the presence of our Lord and the arms of her beloved husband, the late Rev. Dr. Kenneth Molton Dickson. Her life journey ended where it began in Gulfport Mississippi, but in those 90 plus years she lived, loved and laughed abundantly.

Mary Jane was born in King’s Daughters Hospital in Gulfport on July 7,1934, to GHS beauty Margaret Jane Stapledon Ramsey and music educator Harold Henington Ramsey, Gulfport High School’s first ever band director. Within the first year of her life, the family relocated to Lutcher in South Louisiana. The Ramseys moved to Bossier City five years later where Mary Jane became the tiny Bearkat majorette with the Cajun accent. She continued to march alongside her father as he developed a nationally renowned bands program and shared his passion for music and travel. Her Gulfport summers with her beloved aunt/godmother Elizabeth Stapledon Wallace formed her faith and character as well as her love for the beach.

Her youth was focused on music and Christian education. She performed regularly on piano, oboe, English horn, clarinet and as a high soprano. Upon graduation from Bossier HS at age 16, she was awarded a full scholarship to LSU (Geaux Tigahs) for music performance and education and was a proud member of the Golden Band from Tigerland. In Baton Rouge, she was leader of the Methodist students’ Wesley Foundation and worked in civil rights causes. She told stories of clandestinely integrated student ministry groups holding swell parties— and occasionally prayers.

Her next move was divinely inspired. While at LSU, Mary Jane was called to full time Christian ministry. Ordination of women was not a real possibility then in the Methodist church, so she enrolled in Religious Education at Perkins School of Theology at SMU in Dallas. This Louisiana lady was one of only four women in a class of almost 400 students. It was in Professor Richie Hoggs’ History of Christianity class that a future preacher from Texas saved her a seat and launched their history together. Mary Jane and her sweetheart Ken were married February 8, 1957 and journeyed together until his death August 13, 2019.

While the Dicksons were completing their theological education, Mary Jane was hired as a religious education director at Highland Park United Methodist Church on the SMU campus. After graduation in 1958, Ken was appointed associate pastor there. He served in vibrant ministry at HPUMC for 42 years. They made their home in Dallas until relocating in 2017 to Long Beach, Mississippi. Their two children the Revs. Kenneth Ramsey Dickson and Dr. Dorothy Dickson Rishel eventually joined their parents in the ordained ministry.

However, Mary Jane’s journey was far from finished with her marriage and children. While the mother of two small children and wife of a busy pastor, she enrolled in a PhD program of Counseling Psychology at the University of North Texas to deepen her skills to help others. There she became engaged in mental health services for the marginalized and disabled. She graduated on Mother’s Day, 1976.

The newly minted Dr. Dickson joined the faculty of Tarrant County Junior College and spent her career there in various roles including Chair of the Counseling and Psychology Department. She held a particular dedication to helping international, LBGTQ, veteran and disabled students to adjust and excel. She served TCJC with distinction for over 20 years and held regional community college leadership positions. In addition, Dr. Dickson remained active in HPUMC, lending her angelic soprano voice to the choir, counseling the distressed, and leading premarital classes with Ken for over 25 years, sending hundreds of couples into marriage better equipped. Publications included My Baptism and a workbook orienting students to college and mental health.

Mary Jane’s family expanded as her children married the Rev. Rod Dickson Rishel and Michelle Schmidt Dickson. She became Mama Jane with the arrival of her adored grandchildren Savannah Jane Rishel, Emma Grace Rishel Gibson, Andrew Kenneth Dickson, Madeleine Grace Dickson and most recently Emma’s husband Kyle Gibson. Her family naturally included her nieces and extended clan but also encompassed lifelong friends and bonus children and grandchildren who always knew they too were loved as only Mary Jane could love.

Mama Jane became the consummate grandmother, offering everything from living room tent making and etiquette lessons to international travel. Always on the scene, she once excused herself early from a table where she was sitting next to Barbara Bush saying she needed to go to Mississippi to watch her granddaughters perform. She allowed her home to stay papered for years with hundreds of scrap sketches of trains, cars and flags from her grandson’s hand. The grandchildren were royalty at Mama Jane’s and often required deprogramming to return to real life at home.

Over the course of her busy life, Mary Jane lived out her passion for travel and adventure. Her family had many rollicking escapades in far flung places with Mary Jane always making new friends and finding joy in every moment and everyone she met. She was just as likely to lead (drag) her family into campus riots in foreign lands, barely seaworthy fishing boats or women’s rights marches as cathedrals or natural vistas. But, wherever the journey took her, she found endless reasons to laugh, dance and sing.

Never the pushover, Mary Jane was a relentless competitor, who as much as she loved her grandchildren, would never “let” them win a card game. Very late in her life, she taught her caregivers chinese checkers and often soundly and raucously defeated them. She was a rabid fan of football, most especially of football played by Tom Landry’s Dallas Cowboys. She fiercely cheered the SMU Mustangs even through the lean Death Penalty decades. MJ truly loved purple/lived gold with her LSU Tigers. It was a proud night when at nearly 80 she sashayed onto the field of a packed Tiger Stadium with the band as a Golden Tiger alumna.

An unmatched generosity of spirit, rooted in her abiding faith, made it possible for Mary Jane to equally enjoy the folks she met at a beachside mullet fry or a formal inauguration party, finding everyone’s story to be worth telling and hearing. Whether her company was celebrity, immigrant, mentally ill, head of state, or billionaire, all received warmth and respect. She was keenly committed to loving each as Christ loved her.

Mary Jane squeezed about as much out of one lifetime as was possible in this world. She loved; she laughed; she was filled with wonder; and she took ALOT of pictures. Her deep Christian faith was a constant force shaping her life, her work and her relationships. She will be missed by all who knew her and especially those she loved the best. Dr. Mary Jane Dickson’s legacy of joy, generosity, fun and fierce loyalty will shape our lives for good.

The family expresses their thankfulness to the many friends, pastors, medical providers, caregivers and loved ones who so enriched Mary Jane’s life, with particular gratitude to her faithful friend Cindy Keyes.

Memorial services for Mary Jane will be held Saturday April 5, 2025, at First United Methodist of Gulfport. The visitation is set for 10 am in the “Home under the Dome” basement hall of the Sanctuary building. The Service of Death and Resurrection will begin at 11am in the Sanctuary, exactly where Mary Jane was baptized into Christ. Interment will follow at Evergreen Cemetery, Gulfport. In lieu of flowers, the family prefers gifts to Caring Pathways of Carrollton (Texas), First United Methodist of Gulfport (Mississippi) or Highland Park United Methodist of Dallas.

Bradford-O’Keefe Funeral Homes, 15th Street, Gulfport, is honored to serve the family of Mary Jane Ramsey Dickson.