Mary Fears
"The one message that I would leave the world is to be kind and love one another."
THE STORYTELLER
Mary Fears has spent much of her life surrounded by things meant to be passed along.
Books. Lessons. Stories. Pieces of history. Even quilting, one of the pastimes she still enjoys, carries something from one hand to another. At 96, Mary is still interested in what can be learned, remembered, and shared. She still wants to tell people about men and women whose place in American history deserves closer attention. She still sees something useful in a well-told story.
That instinct began long before she became a storyteller.
Mary was born April 3, 1930, in Pelham, Georgia. She grew up with one sister, Doris, who was also her closest friend. Their mother, Jewel Jackson, gave Mary an early model of love and care. Faith was part of the family’s everyday life. Her parents, aunts, and uncle were Christians who attended church regularly, and her parents made education important in the home.
They expected their daughters to do well in school.
Mary carried that expectation with her when she decided to attend Bethune-Cookman College.
Getting there, however, was one thing. Paying for it was another.
There was little money available for tuition and the other expenses that came with college. Mary did not have the luxury of ignoring the problem, so she worked around it. She found jobs in a cafeteria and a drug store and saved what she could toward school.
The experience taught her something she would remember: a goal could become possible when she was willing to work for it and save toward it.
There was nothing glamorous about the lesson. It was practical. If she wanted an education, she had to help make it happen.
Mary eventually earned a Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education, majoring in Business Education, from Bethune-Cookman University. She later earned a Master of Science in Library Science from Florida State University.
Education became more than something she had achieved. It became a way of moving through the world.
Mary believes her schooling helped her become creative in the programs and activities she took on and better able to build relationships with the people involved in them. The young woman who once worked to remain in college eventually spent about 30 years helping children understand what learning could offer them.
As a library media specialist in elementary schools, Mary encouraged students to appreciate reading, enjoy good literature, and learn how to use a library.
Her work was centered on access.
A library can seem ordinary until someone shows a child what is inside it. A shelf becomes a place to search. A book becomes a way into another time, another place, another person’s life. Mary spent three decades helping young readers make those discoveries for themselves.
Retirement did not end her interest in teaching.
It simply changed the subject.
Mary became deeply interested in educating the public about people of color who served the Union during the Civil War. She began reading Civil War history books and biographies of people who lived during that era. The work required hours of study. She read, researched, prepared, and turned what she learned into storytelling programs.
Through those programs, Mary spoke about the service of people of color during the war and their role in the fight that helped bring freedom.
Her presentations earned numerous awards and recognitions. But the awards came after the quieter work: turning pages, studying lives, sorting through history, and deciding that these stories deserved to be heard.
In some ways, Mary never stopped being a librarian.
She still searches for information. She still believes knowledge matters. She still brings what she finds back to other people.
Only now, instead of placing books before children, she often stands before an audience and gives history a voice.
That work carries particular meaning because Mary understands what education made possible in her own life. The student who once worked cafeteria and drug store jobs because college mattered enough to fight for eventually became an educator, a librarian, a researcher, and a storyteller whose work has been recognized by others.
The distance between those two points was covered gradually.
Work by work. Book by book. Year by year.
Faith has remained part of that life as well. Mary describes her personal philosophy simply: to live a Christian life. Jesus Christ remains her greatest inspiration. She does not surround that belief with complicated language.
The values she names are equally simple. Be kind. Love one another.
Mary still looks ahead. Her greatest hope for the future is to remain healthy. In five or ten years, she imagines herself continuing to tell Civil War stories and talking about quilting. There is something revealing in that answer. At her age, the future still contains things she wants to share.
Reading, sewing, quilting, history, and storytelling have all found a place in Mary’s life. Each asks for patience. Each involves paying attention. And each leaves something behind when the work is done.
When asked what she wants people to remember about her, Mary does not offer a list of degrees, awards, or professional accomplishments.
She says she loves telling stories.
Perhaps that is enough.
Mary Fears has spent a lifetime learning what is worth carrying forward. And as long as there is another person willing to listen, she still has something to tell.