In the "Before Chicago" part of her remembrances in The Families, Mary Gwinn Bowe recalls the period in her life before her marriage in 1928 to my father, William John Bowe, Sr. After her own mother Mary Agnes Roche died giving birth to her in 1901, she was brought up by her father's mother, Elizabeth Agnes Burns Gwinn. Mary always called her "Mama." Being a widowed by then with modest resources, she made ends meet by managing a rooming house on the Atlantic shore in Deal, New Jersey. Mary goes on to talk about her schooling, the excitement of being on the New Jersey State women's basketball championship team at Asbury Park High School and her fortuitous entrance at the 11th hour to Trinity College in Washington, D.C.