Introduction

Biography

Mary was the wife of Hen­ry Wheel­er (mar­ried 1858), who as of 1893 was the Phi­la­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia, Con­fer­ence of the Me­tho­dist Epis­co­pal Church.

When she was six years old, her fa­mi­ly emi­grat­ed to Am­er­ica, set­tling in Bing­ham­ton, New York. She ex­celled in com­po­si­tion, and be­gan to write for pub­li­ca­tion at an ear­ly age. At first she wrote more po­et­ry than prose.

Before mar­riage, she was prin­ci­pal of the larg­est high school in Bing­ham­ton.

Mary served as pre­si­dent of the Wo­man’s For­eign Mis­sion­ary So­cie­ty of Phi­la­del­phia; as a na­tion­al ev­an­gel­ist for the Wo­man’s Chris­tian Tem­per­ance Un­ion (WCTU); was a mem­ber of the Na­tional Lec­ture Bu­reau of Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois; and in 1891 was ap­point­ed su­per­in­ten­dent of the World’s WCTU Mis­sion.

Works

• Charge of the Rum Bri­gade, a poem
• Modern Cos­mo­go­ny and the Bi­ble (New York: 1880)
• The First De­cade of the Wo­man’s For­eign Mis­sion­ary So­ci­ety (New York: 1884)
• Poems for the Fire­side (Cin­cin­na­ti, Ohio, 1888)