Biography on mary downing

Mary Downing (née McCarthy; c.1815–1881) was an Irish poet and nationalist best known by her pen name "Christabel". Some of her poetry appeared in The ballad poetry of Ireland (1869), a collection of verse edited by Charles Gavan Duffy.

Life

Mary Downing was born Mary McCarthy around 1815 in Kilfadda More, Kilgarvan, County Kerry. She was the eldest daughter of Daniel McCarthy, Esq. Over her life time, she used a number of pen names but is best known as "Christabel" or "Myrrha". Under these names, Downing published a large amount of her verse in the Cork Southern Reporter and the Freeholder. Under the names "M.F.D." and "C**l" she contributed several poems to the Dublin Citizen. Her best known work, Scraps from the mountains, and other poems was published in 1840 in Dublin.

She married Washington Downing (died 1877) of Kenmare in the 1830s. He was the parliamentary reporter for the Daily News, so the couple moved to London. Washington's brother was Timothy McCarthy Downing. Her daughter Helena Shearer was a famous suffragette. Downing was a dedicated nationalist, and helped a number of the participants of the failed Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848 escape to France. Her father remained at the family home in Kilfadda More and in September 1848, James Stephens and Michael Doheny sheltered there while they planned their escape from Ireland. Doheny escaped on a ship bound for Bristol as a cleric. Initially, it was suggested that Stephens could pose as Downing's maid as he was so young and could have passed for a woman. Stephens refused to take part in this plan, and instead travelled with Downing on the Sabarina posing as her servant boy. Stephens hid

Personal

Born December 9, 1937, in Washington, DC; daughter of Kenneth Ernest (an automobile mechanic) and Anna Elisabeth (a teacher; maiden name, Sherwood) Downing; married William E. Hahn, October 7, 1961 (divorced, 1977); married Norman Pearce Jacob (a librarian), April 23, 1982; children: (first marriage) Katherine Sherwood, Margaret Elizabeth. Education: University of Maryland at College Park, B.A., 1960, M.A., 1969, doctoral study, 1970-74. Politics:Democrat. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, walking, photography, bicycling.

Addresses

Home— 6525 Smokehouse Court, Columbia, MD 21045. E-mail—[email protected].

Career

Novelist and artist. Art teacher at junior high school in Greenbelt, MD, 1960-61; Hutzler's Department Store, Baltimore, MD, clerk, 1963; correspondence clerk for Navy Federal Credit Union, 1963-65; homemaker and writer, 1965-70; English instructor, University of Maryland, 1970-75; freelance artist for Cover to Cover, WETA-TV, 1973-75; Prince George's County Memorial Library System, Laurel Branch, Laurel, MD, children's librarian associate, 1975-91; full-time writer, 1991—.

Member

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Washington Children's Book Guild.

Awards, Honors

American Library Association (ALA) Reviewer's Choice, Library of Congress Children's Books, and School Library Journal Best Books citations, all 1983, Child Study Association of America Children's Books of the Year and National Council of Teachers of English Teachers' Choice citations, both 1984, and William Allen White Children's Choice Award, 1986, all for Daphne's Book;Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, 1988, and children's choice awards from ten other states, all for Wait till Helen Comes; Child Study Association Book Award, 1989, Jane Addams Children's Book Award Honor Book, 1990, and California Young Reader's Medal, 1991, all for December Stillness; ALA Books for Reluctant Readers de

Mary Downing Hahn contributed the following autobiographical essay to SATA:

Writing an autobiography is a difficult task for novelists. Although we use personal experiences in our books, we don't like to be hemmed in by facts. It's so boring to describe events as they actually occurred. For instance, each time I tell a story about my past, my family accuses me of adding something new. "That's not how you told it last time," they say, or worse, "That's not how it happened. I was there, remember?"

Worse than their objections, though, is the uncertainty I feel when they voice them. Although my changes make the story funnier, sadder, or scarier than the event itself, they also make me wonder about my own life. Did it really happen the way I remember it? Or did I alter my history bit by bit over the years until my memory of it bears little resemblance to the truth?

Some things, of course, are irrefutable, and that's probably why so many autobiographies begin with a boring statement of undeniable fact. Here is mine: I was born Mary Elizabeth Downing on the ninth of December in the year 1937, the first child of Anna Elisabeth Sherwood Downing and Kenneth Ernest Downing. My mother was an elementary school teacher. My father was first and foremost an English citizen, but he supported himself as an automobile mechanic in Washington, D.C.

I mention my father's nationality because that was his biggest distinction, the keystone of his personality, what he most wanted people to notice about him. Although he was only ten years old when he came to this country, he clung to his heritage and spoke with a proper English accent until the day he died at the age of fifty-eight.

My father's Anglophilia had its roots in the contrast between his life in England and his life in America. My grandparents' families were both wealthy. My great-grandfathers, William Alexander Downing and James Pettengill, were barristers in London. At one time t