Mary Poe Twitchell

Mary Poe Twitchell was born on February 25, 1944, in Elmira, New York, to Elizabeth Shigley Poe and Charles Aycock Poe, and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she graduated from Broughton High School in 1962. She earned her B.A. from Hollins College in 1966, and that June joined fifteen fellow students on a 40-foot raft named the Rosebud Hobson for a 950-mile journey down the Mississippi River, inspired by Mark Twain. She died peacefully on April 8, 2026, at home in Gainesville, Florida, holding her husband’s hand. She was 82.

Mary earned an M.A. in English from the University of North Carolina in 1970. She went on to earn her J.D. from the University of Florida and an LL.M. from Yale Law School. She joined the faculty of UF’s Levin College of Law in 1982, where she rose to full Professor, publishing scholarship in legal journals including the Harvard Law Review. She retired in 2006 after more than two decades shaping the minds of young attorneys (or, as she put it, “helping baby lawyers find the courthouse”). She wore her many accomplishments lightly.

Mary is survived by her husband of 59 years, James Buell Twitchell, her sister Betsy Poe Manning, her daughters Katherine Britton Twitchell and Elizabeth Twitchell Antrim, her son-in-law Taylor Antrim, and four grandchildren: Stella and Charles Twitchell, and Vivian and William Antrim. She was preceded in death by her brother, Charles Aycock “Chuck” Poe Jr. Mary and Jim were both professors at the University of Florida, and they enjoyed a lifetime together, their marriage being the bedrock of both of their lives. She loved her daughters fiercely, and could always be counted on to defend them, especially when their father (rightly) deemed them “rodents” during competitive games of Uno. She treasured time with her grandchildren, and could always be relied on to find the most beautiful shell on the beach or draw their attention to the way dust motes danced in sunbeams. In her later years, Mary divided her time between Gainesville, where she enjoyed rowdy gatherings with her book group, and Thompson’s Point on Lake Champlain in Charlotte, Vermont, where she loved spending time with her friends, hunting down ancestors on her iPad, and taking in the marvelous sunsets — which she photographed, with great conviction, as though each one was the most sublime yet.