Mary Ayres is more of a doer than a joiner. That’s why, despite 30 years of active service in the Unitarian Church of Edmonton, she’s still not a member.

“I don’t join many things,” says Mary, so that non-member status isn’t likely to change. But Mary’s commitment to our church is rock solid. There has rarely been a kitchen work bee or a church construction project that Mary hasn’t been part of in recent years. Just don’t ask her to sit on committees – attending meetings is not her style.

Those tireless work habits have characterized Mary’s life. Born in Provost in 1932 – she’ll be 80 years old this September – Mary lived on the farm till her parents moved to Edmonton when she was a teenager. After high school she trained as a Certified Nursing Assistant. At 18, while working at the Charles Camsell Hospital, she married. She and James had three children, and Mary went back to nursing part-time while raising her children. She also became a foster parent in 1956, for a year.

In 1961 Mary returned to fostering. Over the next three decades she took in 18 more children, some for just a few days, but many of them for years. The longest stay was Jimmy, who came at age three and stayed till he was 23. Another foster child was adopted by Mary and her husband.

Some of these children had problems – fetal alcohol syndrome, hyperactivity, cerebral palsy, bipolar disorder. Mary handled all of it, drawing on her nursing training and her natural ability as a teacher.

In 1982 Mary went to university, eventually getting her education degree from the University of Alberta. She did some substitute teaching after that, and continued as a foster parent until the early 1990s.

The university degree didn’t end her learning – Mary has learned bookkeeping, furniture upholstery, spinning, quilting and other skills. On the day this interview was done, the kitchen window sill of her house was full of tomatoes from her garden in various stages of ripeness.

“My mother said when I was little: ‘Mary doesn’t have time to smile; she’s too busy’,” Mary says with a chuckle.

Mary’s first exposure to Unitarianism was in the early 1970s when a dedication service for one of her grandchildren was held at the Unitarian Church of Edmonton. It wasn’t for another decade, when John Marsh became minister, that Mary started coming regularly.

Before finding our church Mary hadn’t been a churchgoer, although her mother was an evangelical. “I was always saying, ‘that doesn’t make any sense’,” she recalls of her earlier religious encounters. At UCE she found a whole community of questioners.

Mary’s husband James died in 1997 and she moved to her current house in northwest Edmonton 11 years ago. Her family is planning a party in a community hall to mark her 80^th.  Hers has been a life well lived.

(Interviewed by Susan Ruttan, 5 Sept. 2012)