Mary Jean Creager is working on her 5th term as a City Councilwoman. “I feel like I’ve always been involved because I wanted to know what was going on,” she said. She made it a habit to attend city council and quorum court meetings so she would be informed.
Her first involvement began with the Eagle Heights neighborhood during an Urban Renewal phase. “There were houses in that area that weren’t connected to city sewer lines at that time, and I was interested in helping.”
The first time she ran for city council, someone showed up at her house with a petition with two names already on the list – encouraging her to run for the office.
Mary Jean’s family owned a “fillin’ station” and lived above the business. The late-night truck drivers hauling turkeys from Thayer, Missouri, would pull in, and the bell would ring in her room. She was in the habit of running downstairs, turning on the pumps and coffee pot for the drivers. She was well-trained as a waitress, cook, and dishwasher. Gasoline customers would pull up and ask if she cleaned windshields. Her reply was, “This is a fillin’ station. Not a service station.”
Education was very important to her family. She began at Bergman Schools through part of the ninth grade. But by then, the family had moved to Bear Creek, and she was commuting more than 100 miles a day to get to school – with a friend who taught at Hopewell, where she caught a Bergman bus. When Hopewell consolidated with Harrison, she transferred. The Algebra book she had been using was missing the first 11 pages, so she was immediately behind when she transferred. “That did make it hard. I was Valedictorian of the 8th grade at Bergman, but it didn’t carry over to Harrison,” she laughed.
Mary Jean married Ernest “Ernie” Creager in 1954. “I feel like I’ve been married all my life.” As a mom, she stayed busy with seven years between each of their three sons. She currently has nine grandchildren and seven great-grands. She’s proud that she taught her boys to volunteer, and the family is still very involved with serving the community.
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