Marcella Diller

July 23, 1932 – April 8, 2022

Marcella Mary Diller, a longtime Hereford resident, died Friday. She was 89 years old. Mass of Christian Burial will be on Tuesday, April 19, 2022, at 10:00 AM at St. Anthony's Catholic Church with Celebrant Nick Gerber officiating. Burial to follow at St. Anthony's Cemetery. Arrangements and services have been entrusted to Mendez and Mullins Family Funeral Home of Hereford, Texas. Viewing will be on Monday, April 18, 2022, from 5:30PM-6:30PM with rosary at 6:30 PM at the funeral home.

Ms. Diller was the second of 13 children born to Marvin and Frances Diller. She grew up on farms in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas before the Diller family settled outside of Hereford.

She graduated at the top of her class from Sacred Heart Academy in Wichita, Kansas, in 1949. The following year, she began her lifelong career as a teacher when she became the sole instructor for grades 1-8 at Pretty View, a one room schoolhouse near Marienthal, Kansas.

Ms. Diller earned her undergraduate degree from St. Scholastica College and was an elementary school teacher in districts throughout Kansas for many years before completing her master's degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1966. She then focused on teaching high school English.  During 1977-78, Ms. Diller was a post-graduate fellow at the University of Colorado in Boulder, while also teaching at Mullen High School in Denver.

She eventually returned to the Texas Panhandle, spending 25 years as a high school English teacher and faculty advisor for Olympics of the Mind in Pampa.  Her students knew her to be a strict but fair educator who focused as much on life skills and manners as she did on spelling and punctuation.  She retired from teaching in 2002 and rejoined her family in Hereford, where she was an active member of St. Anthony's Catholic Church.

Ms. Diller enjoyed reading, cooking, traveling, and spending time with her family.  She is survived by her siblings, Sue Diller (sister-in-law) of Amarillo; Kenneth Diller of Texline; Kathleen Knoeber of Hereford; Rose Crandall of Canyon; Margaret Diller of Hereford; Ralph Diller and his wife Shelly, of Hereford; Eugene Diller and his wife Rita, of Canyon; Janice McFadden of Durant, Oklahoma; and George Diller and his wife Nancy, of Senatobia, Mississippi.  Ms. Diller was a beloved aunt to three generations of nieces and nephews (89 people and counting).

You may go online and sign the guestbook at www. mendezandmullins.com