URBANA - Mary Ellen Andrew, 88, died at 3:45 a.m. Wednesday (Sept. 29, 2010) at Clark-Lindsey Village, Urbana.

Mrs. Andrew was born September 8, 1922, in Oconee, Illinois, the daughter of Anne Elizabeth (Luce) and Charles Edward Grote. She married Russell Andrew on June 27, 1954, in Pana, Illinois. She resided with Russell in Marseilles, Illinois, from 1954 to 1996.

She is survived by her daughter, Jane Andrew, of Oak Park, Illinois; her sister Helen Stahl of Decatur, Illinois; her sister-in-law Ethel Grote of Lancaster, California; and her brother C. Nelson Grote and his wife Wilma of Morehead, Kentucky. She was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, and her brother Donald V. Grote of Santa Barbara, California.

Mrs. Andrew graduated from Pana High School in 1940 and received a B.S. from Eastern Illinois University in 1944 and an M.S. from the University of Illinois in 1952, both in home economics. She taught home economics at Stonington, Robinson, and Morton, Illinois, before coming to Ottawa High School, where she taught from 1950 to 1964.

She served on the Marseilles School Board from 1977 to 1982 and was an active member of the First Congregational Church of Marseilles.

Her teaching specialty was sewing, and in later years she became an accomplished quilter, receiving a blue ribbon in an Illinois Valley Quilt Guild show in Ottawa.

Services will be held privately at a later date. Memorial contributions may be made to the First Congregational Church of Marseilles, 255 E. Bluff St., Marseilles, IL 61341.