Mary Jo’s civil rights work in the 1960s was unprecedented for women in that era. Her colorblind compassion and concern for those less fortunate aligned with Robert Kennedy’s work in that area, and we are proud of the achievements they made.

We will never know what that course would’ve held for her, but we do know through letters from close friends and personal effects that she believed in a better America. In publishing the book Our Mary Jo, we — as part of her family — tried to begin to fulfill a legacy so sadly cut short. Likewise, the scholarship in her name keeps her own eternal flame alive.