Mary O'Hara (author)

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Mary O'Hara Alsop (1885-1980) was an American author and screenwriter.

1 Biography
2 Books
3 See also
4 Sources
5 External links

[edit] Biography

Mary O'Hara Alsop was born July 10, 1885 in Cape May Point, New Jersey, the third child of Reverend Dr. Reese Fell Alsop and Mary Lee Spring. O'Hara, who was named after her maternal grandmother, Mary O'Hara Spring (nee Denny), grew up in Brooklyn Heights, New York. Her siblings included an older sister, the writer Gulielma ("Elma") Fell; an older brother, Reese; and a younger sister, Elizabeth ("Bess"). She was a descendant of William Penn.

She married her third cousin, Kent Kane Parrot, in 1905 against her father's wishes. They had a son, Kent Kane Parrot, Jr., and a daughter who died of cancer in childhood.

Following the end of of their marriage, Mary O'Hara worked as a Hollywood screenwriter during the silent film era. Her screenwriting credits included the movies The Last Card (1921), The Prisoner of Zenda (1922), Braveheart (1925), and Framed (1927).

In 1922 she married Helge Sture-Vasa, a Swede who had experience working horses in the U.S. Army's remount service, and they moved to Wyoming. In 1930 the couple bought a cattle and horse ranch, established in 1886, in Laramie County, between Laramie and Cheyenne, which they renamed Remount Ranch. At Remount, O'Hara ran a successful summer camp for boys on holiday from Eastern prep schools. Her best-known and loved works were written at this time: My Friend Flicka (1941), Thunderhead (1943), and Green Grass of Wyoming (1946).

They sold the ranch in 1946, and the following year Mary O'Hara divorced her second husband. In 1948, she returned to the Eastern U.S., settling in Monroe, Connecticut.

Mary O'Hara was not just a talented writer but also an accomplished pianist and composer. She composed a folk musical, The Catch Colt", which was performed in 1961 at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and at the Lincoln Theatre in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The musical was published in 1964. Two years later, O'Hara published her account of writing, composing and producing the musical, "A Musical in the Making".

Her other piano compositions included "Esperan" (1943), "Green Grass of Wyoming" (1946), "May God Keep You" (1946), and "Wind Harp" (1954).

In 1968, she moved to Chevy Chase, Maryland, where she lived until her death on October 14, 1980 at the age of 95 of arteriosclerosis.

[edit] Books

Let Us Say Grace (1930)

My Friend Flicka (1941)
Thunderhead (1943)
Green Grass of Wyoming (1946)

The Son of Adam Wyngate (1952)
Novel-in-the-Making (1954)
Wyoming Summer (1963); based on O'Hara's diary
A Musical in the Making (1966); O'Hara's account of writing, composing and producing the musical, "The Catch Colt"
Flicka's Friend (1982); O'Hara's autobiography, published posthumously