Mary's book consists of her weekly columns that she has written over a twenty year period. Which have been published in The Toledo Democrat and in Naples, Florida where she lived as a Snowbird for twenty years. In Naples she used the byline Under The Sun. Her columns there were first published in the Golden Gate Gazette and when it closed they were published in "The Collier Citizen" as long as she was residing in Florida.
Mary has written about a variety of subjects including growing up on a bright leaf tobacco farm in Eastern North Carolina, during The Great Depression and living in a segregated society; although her parents were not segregationists.
She also has columns being the first woman elected to serve on her local community college board and later as chairman of the Illinois Community College Trustees Association in Springfield. She also has written about the pain of losing her oldest son and her teaching experiences.
She was first introduced to column writing as her parents had jointly written a human interest's column for The Raleigh News And Observer entitled "Down Onslow Way"
Mary had fallen in love at 16 and dropped out of school to marry her loving husband of 63 years. She later secured a GED diploma and attended college as an adult
