Boston Writer Mary Blake (1840-1907) of County Waterford, Published Poetry, Children's Books and Travelogues

Boston poet and Irish ex-pat Mary (McGrath) Blake died at her home in Boston on February 26, 1907 at age 67. The Boston Pilot wrote that she "was considered one of Boston's sweetest poets and combined a pleasing literary style with a gracious personality."
Born in Dungarvan, County Waterford in 1840, she emigrated with her family to America in 1849 and settled in Quincy, Massachusetts. According to The Pilot, "she early on developed an aptitude for composition, while at the Quincy High School, Mr. Emerson's private school, and later at the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Manhattanville, N. Y., her abilities in this direction were remarked. She taught for a time in the public schools of Quincy."
In her teens she published poetry in The Boston Pilot and later in Boston Transcript and Boston Journal. Mary wrote commemorative poems about Wendall Phillips and the Sisters of Charity, and forceful poems in which she challenged anti-Irish sentiment in Boston, ‘Who cast a slur on Irish worth, a stain on Irish fame?’
In 1865 she married Dr. John G. Blake and they had 11 children, 6 of whom survived. Their son Arthur Blake, born in 1872, went to the first Modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 and place second in the 1500 meters.
Her best known poems, wrote the Pilot, included " Women of the Revolution," " How Ireland Answered," " The First Steps," " The Little Sailor Kiss," " Our Record " and a " A Dead Summer."
In addition to her poetry, Black also published published children’s books and three travelogues about entitled "Mexican Travels," "A Summer Holiday in Europe," and "On the Wing."
Boston Pilot Editor Katherine E. Conway, who worked with Blake for over two decades, said of Blake, "She was a sincere and original writer, and her words are those of a worker along the paths of sincerity and the thoughts of the daily life and nature of manhood. She is worthy of the greatest praise because she was a woman of the ordinary type; that is, a woman who had to bear the same cares and responsibilities as many others. She had her family to take care of; she had a father and a mother to guard and protect in their old age; she had many church and social positions demanding much of her time, and yet. in spite of all these, she found some time in which to devote herself to the more pleasing pursuits of literature."
Her funeral mass took place at Immaculate Conception Church in Boston's South End. Archbishop William H. O'Connell said the mass, along with a dozen other priests. She is buried at Holyhead Cemetery in Brookline.

- Research + Text, Michael Quinlin

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