The O'Neal Genealogy Association Newsletter

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TOGA NEWS Volume III, Issue 8, August, 2003

When I was asked to say a few words today about Mary, I realized that although Jerry and I were friends and neighbors to Mary for 20 some years, there are many here today who have known Mary much longer than us and perhaps better.  I guess that all of us had our own unique and special relationship with her.  Over the last few days I have had the pleasure of speaking with several of you to try and capture some thoughts and memories of Mary and paint a fuller picture of who she was.

Mary Virginia McFarland was born on May 28, 1927, the only child of Charles Leroy McFarland and Dorothy Holderman McFarland in Twin Falls, ID where she grew up.  She was proud to have attended Stanford University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree, with Distinction, in 1950.

Mary was married to Donald Hoover in 1954 and they settled in Golden in 1955 where Donald attended the Colorado School of Mines and became a geophysicist.  Donald’s profession gave them the opportunity to live in Brazil for a period of time.  Mary and Donald were divorced in 1972.

Given Mary’s love of books and reading, it is no surprise that she spent 25 years with the Golden Library as a clerk.  She is fondly remembered by the many friends she made while she worked there.  Her long-time friend, Carol Christiansen, told me of a library outreach program that Mary was instrumental in back in the early ‘80s to provide books to inmates at the old county jail.  According to Carol, she really enjoyed the program and was very good at it.  She must have been popular there…apparently one of the inmates asked her to stand up for him at his wedding.

When Mary retired from the library, she pursued one of her great passions in life…researching her family history.  I spoke to Carol Jansons, an old friend and the ex-registrar of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.  Carol said Mary was an “incredible genealogist and really enjoyed it”.  She has five proven Revolutionary War ancestors and submitted paperwork for approval to the DAR in Washington D.C. for at least two more ancestors.  Her ancestor, Joseph Woods, fought in the American Revolution.

Mary also discovered in her research that she was a descendant of Thomas Rogers who arrived on the Mayflower.  Barbara Brown of the Society of the Descendants of the Mayflower, of which Mary was a member, said that “half of Mary’s relatives were already here to meet the Mayflower”.   She was just as proud of her Native American ancestry.  Mary’s great-grandmother, Elizabeth Turtle Covel, was a member of the First Families of the Cherokee Nation and a legal resident of the Cherokee Nation prior to 1839 in Floyd County, Georgia, on the Chullooga River.

I heard a common theme from her library friends regarding her genealogy expertise.  According to Jo Barber of the Golden Library, “she was very generous with her specialized knowledge…and she was very helpful on a personal and professional level to library staff”.  She continued to be a resource to staff and library patrons long after she retired.  In fact, when I sent an email to Mary’s email address book regarding her death, a number of the replies I received were from distant relatives who never met Mary but had received her help in researching their own families.