Chronicle

At 23, she seemed destined for a life of academia in North America when happenstance caused her to choose a road far less travelled, leading her all the way to Zambia. That ripple soon turned into more of a tsunami, when another life-changing decision found Mary calling Africa home for the next 50 years.

Growing up in North Toronto, Mary, a “lifer” at Havergal (Grades 1 through 13), was always a conscientious student. Her fond memories include recalling that Miss Steele (later to become Dr. Steele, our esteemed principal in the ’60s and ’70s) used to teach history in an unconventional way: she would read historical novels to the girls. Maybe not so surprisingly, Mary went on to do a BA in History and Modern Languages at the University of Toronto, followed by an MA in Russian History at Columbia University, in New York City.

While pursuing a PhD at Columbia, Mary found herself becoming disillusioned with the politics of academic life. She yearned to do something more meaningful than writing a thesis. What she particularly enjoyed was learning about other people and cultures. A fellow Canadian at Columbia had worked in India and encouraged her to apply to Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO). Mary landed in Zambia, posted at a girl’s school run by missionaries. Surrounded by British teachers, she felt her exposure to African culture was lacking, so she was able to arrange a transfer to the University of Zambia, where, as a research assistant in the History Department, she was tasked to compile a bibliography of Zambian history.

It was at a house party in Zambia that Mary met Edward Ndlovu, a Zimbabwean exile, politician and freedom fighter. The couple fell in love, and when Mary’s first CUSO contract ended, she returned to Canada for a year to further her education, returning to Zambia as a fully qualified teacher. The fascinating story of the couple’s life together in Zambia, and later Zimbabwe following that country’s independence in 1980, is revealed in Mary’s book, An Outsider Within: A Memoir of Love, of Loss, of Perseverance, published in 2024. In a nutshell, their life was heavily fraught with political strife and not without danger while raising their three children, born in 1973, 1976 and 1980. However, turning their backs was not an option.

While all this political activity was taking place, Mary continued her work in education, travelling throughout the western part of Zimbabwe to visit students on teaching practice. In 1992, Mary left her government position and joined an NGO, the Legal Resources Foundation, which offered free legal services to disadvantaged Zimbabweans in both urban and rural areas. She developed and implemented a program to train paralegals, who would inform people about their legal rights, offer remedies and provide rudimentary advice for adapting to the changing laws.

She retired from full-time employment after 10 years and began to freelance in legal and human rights, and democracy. She also prepared education and training materials for NGOs. Later, she was commissioned to write the histories of three different Zimbabwean NGOs. Mary thoroughly enjoyed her work and the people, but with her three children having moved to Canada and Barbados, she decided it was time to leave her extended family in Zimbabwe and return home. In 2016, she settled with her younger daughter in Calgary.