Mary Elizabeth Mahnkey
Through the years, the people of the Ozarks have been stereotyped as hillbillies with little or no sophistication. Very few writers have looked beyond the stereotype to the real people. One who did, though, was Mary Elizabeth Mahnkey, a native daughter who wrote about ordinary activities and real people.
Mary Elizabeth Prather was born on August 16, 1877, in Harrison, AR, just over the state line from Taney County, MO. Her family moved around during her childhood, which led to many interesting adventures. As a toddler, Mary Elizabeth was thrown from a wagon and run over, nearly losing her hand. When she was three, the family lived in Kansas. One day a group of Indians came to the house and nearly kidnapped the girl but relented because Mary Elizabeth's mother provided them with food and water. The family eventually located in Taney County, MO.
During the Civil War and post-war years, the people of Taney County were subject to lawless gangs. Finally, a group of men decided to form a vigilante group known as the Bald Knobbers to keep law and order in the county. One of the founding members was Mary Elizabeth's father. Colonel Prather felt it was his patriotic duty to help keep order. However, the group eventually grew out of control and began terrorizing the county. Colonel Prather served as an intermediary between the Bald Knobbers and law enforcement to help shut down the group.
Colonel Prather sent his children to school, and Mary Elizabeth discovered that she loved to write. In fact, the whole family wrote. Mary Elizabeth's mother kept journals, the three girls wrote poetry, and two of the boys were in the newspaper business. Mary Elizabeth also wanted to teach. At 16 she enrolled in the normal school and received her teaching degree. In 1894, at age 17, she got her first job teaching school for a salary of $20.00 a month.
After a couple of years of teaching, Mary Elizabeth went to business school in Springfield, MO. But, she felt very homesick and out of place, so she returned to her home in the Taney County hills, where she spent the rest of her life.
When Mary Elizabeth was 13, she met a boy named Pres Mahnkey who became a good friend. When she was 21 and Pres was 23, they began courting and married on January 18, 1899. Throughout her married life, Mary Elizabeth held many jobs--farmer, postmaster, and storekeeper. But she always wrote. She was a local correspondent for a newspaper, writing a weekly column for 57 years. She also wrote for numerous national magazines and published several volumes of poetry. In 1935, Mary Elizabeth has honored as the best rural newspaper correspondent in North America, and in 1943, she was named Poet Laureate of the Ozarks.
Mary Elizabeth loved her Ozark home and celebrated the land and its people in her writing. She died of cancer on August 13, 1948. The energy of her life and writings are captured in Ellen Gray Massey's biography of Mary Elizabeth, A Candle Within Her Soul.
Works Consulted
Massey, Ellen Gray. A Candle Within Her Soul: Mary Elizabeth Mahnkey and Her Ozarks. Lebanon, MO: Bittersweet, Inc., 1996.
-----. "Voice from the Ozarks: Mark Elizabeth Mahnkey." In the Heart of Ozark Mountain Country. Ed. Frank Rueter. Reeds Spring, MO: White Oak Press, 1992, pp. 107-09.
Photograph of Mary Elizabeth Mahnkey, courtesy of Lyons Memorial Library, College of the Ozarks
