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NBC's TODAY Show Celebrates GU Alumna's "Life Well Lived"

Published: April 13, 2021

NBCSTODAY Showrecently featured Greenville University Distinguished Alumna Mary Taylor Previte 53 as part of itsLife Well Livedseries. The segment appeared in response to Prevites death November 16. She was 89.

Previte, the daughter of Christian missionaries in China, spent part of her childhood in an internment camp during Japans World War II occupation of China.

Recalling the story, The Philadelphia Inquirernoted Prevites deep gratitude for her teachers, who also were interned, and for the U.S. paratroopers who helped free her.

Im telling you, we lived a miracle where grownups preserved our childhood, she said.

NBC's TODAY Show Celebrates GU Alumna's Life of Service

Previte went on to serve in the New Jersey General Assembly and advocate for youth. She headed efforts to meet the needs of children and youth as administrator of a youth detention center in Camden, New Jersey. She turned the center into a national model for youth reform and recounted her work in a book, Hungry Ghosts (Zondervan, 1994).

NPR recalled Marys 30 years working with at-risk youth by reposting previousinterviewswith her that initially appeared as part of itsFresh Airseries. At the invitation of host Terry Gross, Previte shared her formula for success: create a world for youth that is comfortingly predictable with known expectations and schedules, and known routines and responsibilities.

Our children are living in an unpredictable world that is so frightening because they don't know when they put their foot down on any day whether it's going to be solid or when it's going to be squishy. No child can feel safe in a world like that.

Resilience and Gratitude Modeled

She lived a life of self-reinvention, saidTheNew York Timesof Prevites capacity for resilience in the face of challenge.

In recent years, Previte gained notoriety for fulfilling her personal mission of thanking her liberators face to face.

The fall 2016 issue of GUs alumni magazineThe RECORDrecounted Prevites reunion inNBC's TODAY Show Celebrates GU Alumna's China with liberator Wang Chenghan, 71 years after their last encounter. The pairs reunion marked the end of Marys 18-year quest to locate and thank each member of the rescue team.

It is the end of a dream to actually have found all of the heroes and have an opportunity to see them face to face, she said. Its really an opportunity to say thank you.

Previte was nameGU Distinguished Alumnain 1993.

Learn More

A Revolutionary Upbringing Alumnus Enoch Poon 86
The Long Way to China Alumna Wilma Kastens '47
The Voice That Trumps Reason and Worldly Values - President Ivan Filby
Calling: There For the Summer, Stayed 22 years - Tom Belser Brown '79

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