When Furman awarded Mary Simms Oliphant Furman an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree in 2007, it recognized her as a \u201cdignified and intellectually vibrant woman\u201d who demonstrated \u201ca lifelong love of learning, and a lifelong generosity to her community and her alma mater.\u201d With her husband Alester G. Furman III, a member of the university\u2019s founding family, she contributed much toward the betterment of the school and the community.<\/p>\n
When she died January 22 in Greenville, she left an extensive educational, civic and cultural legacy.<\/p>\n
She was the great-granddaughter of William Gilmore Simms, the South\u2019s leading antebellum poet, novelist and historian. She and her mother, Mary Simms Oliphant, were co-authors of several editions of The History of South Carolina<\/em> and South Carolina: From the Mountains to the Sea,<\/em> textbooks used by generations of students in the state.<\/p>\n Mrs. Furman was influential in developing Greenville\u2019s first arts festival and worked on a number of local restoration projects. She was active in the Carolina Foothills Garden Club and the Junior League, serving both as president, and with her husband provided generous support to the South Carolina Governor\u2019s School for the Arts and Humanities, the Upcountry History Museum, the S.C. Nature Conservancy and Greenville\u2019s Peace Center for the Performing Arts.\u00a0She was a member of the Tuesday Study Club, the Cercle Franco Am\u00e9ricain, the Debutante Club of Greenville, the Assembly and the Quadrille.<\/p>\n She attended Greenville Woman\u2019s College for two years in the late 1930s, then studied for a year at the Sorbonne in Paris before earning a bachelor\u2019s degree from the University of South Carolina. She later received a master\u2019s in French literature from the University of North Carolina, where she performed with the Martha Graham Dance Company.<\/p>\n She helped plan and design several Furman buildings, including Daniel Chapel and Earle Infirmary. Furman Mall, the main campus thoroughfare, is named for her and her husband. Their four daughters established a scholarship at the university in honor of their parents.<\/p>\n In addition to her daughters, Mrs. Furman is survived by five grandchildren, two step-grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and one step great-grandchild.<\/p>\n Memorials: Mary Simms Oliphant and Alester Garden Furman III Scholarship at Furman; Christ Church Episcopal, 10 N. Church St., Greenville 29601; or a charity of one\u2019s choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Furman awarded Mary Simms Oliphant Furman an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree in 2007, it recognized her as a \u201cdignified and intellectually vibrant woman\u201d who demonstrated \u201ca lifelong love […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":2539,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}