Mary Jo Watson

Mary Jo Watson, PhD, passed from this world on November 18, 2025, at the age of 88, having lived an extraordinary life as a groundbreaking academic and historian in Native American Art and Art History. She was also a loving mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Mary Jo passed just a few hours after the death of her firstborn child, Timothy Wantland, age 68, a Claremore attorney and Chief Justice of the Seminole Nation.

Mary Jo was born in Seminole, Oklahoma on April 27, 1937, to Doyal and Opal Watson, during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. In 1954, She married fellow Seminole High School debater, William C. (Bill) Wantland, whose work with the FBI took them to Washington D.C., Honolulu, in the Territory of Hawaii, where Tim was born, then back to Oklahoma City, where their daughter, Malia and son, Ken were born, before returning to their hometown of Seminole where Bill began practicing law, later becoming an ordained priest, then a bishop in the Episcopal Church. They remained married for 26 years. She later married Oklahoma City attorney Douglas Loudenback, who passed in 2021.

In the 1960s, despite the endless demands of motherhood and homemaking, Mary Jo longed to complete a college degree. Juggling carpools, cooking, cub scouts, sports, dance, and piano lessons for her kids, she attended Seminole Junior College, then the University of Oklahoma. She began as a painting major, but developed a passion for art history, and after earning her bachelor’s degree, she earned a master’s with a thesis on the art of the Seminole Nation, of which she was a proud member. She became the first director of the Center for the American Indian, an organization that later evolved into Red Earth. She later returned to OU to earn her PhD, with a dissertation that examined the work of women Native American artists of 20th century Oklahoma.

A gifted teacher and scholar, she served the University of Oklahoma in a career that spanned 40 years, promoting Native American art and art history, creating courses to teach students about the art of Indigenous people throughout the Americas, collaborating to create a bachelor’s degree, master’s, and finally a doctoral program focused on Indigenous art – the first program of its kind in the United States and one that continues to flourish today.

Mary Jo was a tireless advocate for Native American art, lecturing throughout Oklahoma, across the nation and internationally. She played a pivotal role in the creation of First Americans Museum (FAM), offering her counsel on the original cultural advisory committee, and donated her extensive collection of Indigenous literature publications to the museum. The collection is housed in FAM’s Dr. Mary Jo Watson Scholars Library.

Her work resulted in numerous honors and awards throughout her career, including two Governor’s Arts Awards for significant contributions to the arts in Oklahoma, and many teaching awards from the University of Oklahoma. She was a member of the Seminole State College Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame, and the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame and was honored with the Paseo Art Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2023, she was inducted into the Red Earth Elders Council in recognition of her lifelong commitment to Native art and culture.

During her career, she lectured throughout the state, nationally, and internationally, and was beloved by countless students over the decades. After she retired from teaching in 2018 at the age of 81, a group of her former students fundraised for the creation of the Mvhayv Award, an endowed scholarship for graduate students studying Native American art history at OU. Mvhayv is Seminole for “teacher.” Of all her professional accomplishments, her students are her greatest legacy, becoming museum directors, curators, university professors, arts administrators, magazine publishers, art appraisers, and professional artists.

Mary Jo is preceded in death by her parents, Opal and Doyal Watson, her brother, Tom Watson, husband, Douglas Loudenback, and son, Tim, and wife Melinda Wantland. She is survived by her daughter, Malia and husband Steve Bennett, her son Ken and wife Christine Wantland, 14 grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren, as well as nieces, nephews, and cousins. She is also survived by her dear friend, Gene Brantley, whose kindness and companionship were a blessing to her and her family in her final two years.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Mvhayv scholarship fund in her memory: https://give.oufoundation.org/WatsonMemorial