Who This Is

Her name was Mary Calvin Murray, although those who loved her best called her "Mae." She was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on May 11, 1855.

At some point in her early years she traveled with her family to America,where she met a man named Thomas Arthur Roche, who was born in New York City. There is no record of how they met, but there is speculation that it may have happened shortly after she arrived in that city. She was just 18 when they married; he was 28. They moved to Calvert, Texas, where she took great pride in the neatness of the area in front of their modest home. There was no grass for lawns in those days, but she kept a special broom for sweeping it flat so that it always looked tidy. Her husband was the postmaster of that small community -- surely not a fancy job, but one which carried with it a great deal of responsibility.

They had two fine sons -- Austin Oliver and Murray Lee -- and I know from memoirs Austin left that although she was a firm mother, she was also in many ways still a young girl at heart and he and Murray loved her madly.

She contracted yellow fever in 1880 and died just shortly after her 25th birthday.

I share this because she was my great-great-grandmother, and although she never accomplished anything outside her quiet life as wife and mother of two sons, her life meant my great-grandfather was here, and my grandfather was here, and my father is here, and I am here, and my two sons are here, and her life reminds me that sometimes just living the life appointed to you is enough.