Mary Pauline Bode passed away peacefully in Stillwater, Okla., at the age of 90 on Oct. 6, 2018 after a long illness. She was born Mary Pauline Barker in Cortland, Ohio, on Sept. 9, 1928. She, her brother, and their mother Hedy spent part of her childhood with relatives in Switzerland right before the outbreak of World War II, when fears of the coming violence prompted them to return to Ohio. She grew up in the farming country of eastern Ohio, and often recounted the story of how she learned to drive a tractor at around age 9. In those days her mother would deliver milk from the dairy farm to the train station with a horse-drawn wagon. After graduating from high school, Pauline worked as medical transcriptionist and for an airline. She married John Oscar Bode, a friend of her cousins, from just up the road in Kinsman, Ohio, on Jan. 2, 1955. Their four children were born in Youngstown, Ohio. Following his career with several companies as a fertilizer salesman and broker, they moved several times, settling in Tulsa in 1971. Pauline was a full-time homemaker and mother, who loved to cook and to preserve the produce from their extensive backyard garden. She was an accomplished seamstress and for a time had a home business with a friend making custom drapes. She also loved art, finding time to express the creative streak that ran in her family by painting in oil. The family was one of the first to start the tail-gating craze at Oklahoma State Universitys home football games, taking a travel trailer and cooking up vats of chili. The family took many camping trips, usually to Civil War battlefields and other historic spots that John loved to visit. In later years Pauline and John made several trips to Germany and Switzerland, visiting relatives and pursuing the history of their family trees. John passed away on Sept. 5, 2001, and later, in 2013, Pauline moved to Stillwater to be near her daughter. She was also preceded in death by her brother, Rudy Barker. She leaves behind four children: Jeffrey and wife Barbara, of Glenwood, Utah; John Thomas and wife Margie, of Stillwater; Julie and husband Wayde Strain, of Stillwater; Charles and wife Dana of Mounds; eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. She leaves her family with beautiful memories of her constant care and generosity, her infectious laugh, her wonderful meals, and many Friday nights around the kitchen table, snacking on "doctored-up frozen pizza", as she put it, and solving all the worlds problems. She loved crossword puzzles and encyclopedias and was endlessly curious about the world. Her greatest joy was seeing her children and grandchildren grow up. The family will conduct a private service at a later time.