It's a Grand Old Name Trivia Quiz

Answer: Mary Surratt

Mary Surratt, a widow, ran a boarding house in Washington, D.C. and John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln's assassin, was a frequent visitor. Mary's son, John Surratt Jr., was a Confederate spy and messenger, and a friend of Booth's. According to the not altogether reliable (in my view) testimony of John M. Lloyd, Mrs. Surratt was charged with seven others as a co-conspirator in the Lincoln assassination plot.

She was hanged on July 7, 1865, with three of the men charged in the crime, and took her place in history as the first woman executed by order of the United States Government. Mudd, Herold and Paine were also charged as co-conspirators, but they were all men, none of whom was named Mary.

Answer: Mary Tudor aka Bloody Mary

Those who maintain that the rhyme is really about Bloody Mary and her attempts to stamp out Protestantism in England during her rule point to the lines 'pretty maids all in a row', which they claim is a reference to nuns (sitting in pews, one assumes), and 'silver bells (mass bells?) and cockleshells' (the cockleshell was the badge worn by pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela, in Spain, the country of Mary's husband King Philip II).

Interestingly enough, nursery rhyme experts Iona and Peter Opie can find no reference to the rhyme dating any further back than the 18th century, so who knows which Queen Mary it's about. Highland Mary is Mary Campbell, one of poet Robert Burns' lady-loves, immortalized in the Scottish bard's 'Highland Mary' (from which she derives her soubriquet) and other poems. Mary of Guise was the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, who, on the death of James V, ruled Scotland in Mary's stead, since a six-day old baby was hardly equipped to run a country.

Answer: Mary of Arnhem

Mary of Arnhem (real name Helen Sensburg) made Nazi propaganda broadcasts to the British troops in the latter years of the Second World War. The broadcasts were a hit - the Tommies loved to listen to her sexy voice, but she made no headway with her pleas that they lay down their arms, so the broadcasts didn't have the hoped-for effect.

There may have been Marys living in Brussels, Paris and Mons, but if there were, they never made it into the history books.

Answer: Queen Mary, wife of King George V

Victoria Mary of Teck was the daughter of Francis, Duke of Teck and his wife Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge. One of the minor royals, she was hand-picked by her Godmother Queen Victoria as a suitable bride for Victoria's grandson Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, son and heir of the then Prince of Wales (later Edward VII). Unfortunately, six weeks after the engagement was celebrated, Albert Victor died. Nothing loth, Queen Victoria, still convinced that Mary would be a suitable wife for a king, persuaded Albert Victor's brother George to marry Mary.

Surprisingly, the arranged marriage turned out to be a love match, and George and Mary were devoted to one another, if not to their six children (one of whom became Edward VIII who abdicated to marry divorcee Wallis Simpson, leaving his brother to assume the crown as George VI). Mary had a strong sense of duty and proved to be a great support to her son Bertie when he became King George VI. Mary II was married to William III, Prince of Orange, and while their marriage was childless, they were also devoted to one another. Mary of Modena was the second wife of James II and the marriage can't have been all that successful since James had an eye for the ladies. And since shortly after her marriage to Ferdinand, Marie of Romania took a lover, I have a sneaking suspicion that royal union wasn't a love match, either.

Answer: Mary Martin

Mary Martin was born in Weatherford, TX in 1913, and had a long and distinguished career on the Broadway stage. Among the highlights: she created the roles of Nellie Forbush in 'South Pacific', and Maria in 'The Sound of Music'. It took her two years to convince producers and directors that she had the makings of a star. In fact, she was known as 'Audition Mary' during those two years. Her big break came in 1938 when she played Dolly Winslow, the secondary female lead in Cole Porter's 'Leave it to Me', and stopped the show every night with her rendition of 'My Heart Belongs to Daddy'. She also played the title role in 'Peter Pan', another milestone in her career. She garnered any number of awards during her life on the stage.

Mary Morrison is a Winnipeg-born soprano who is an internationally-renowned interpreter of modern operatic roles and now teaches the Master Class in Opera at the University of Toronto (my Goddaughter is one of her students, a matter of pride since to get into Ms Morrison's class one has to audition, and my Goddaughter was one of two sopranos out of 198 hopefuls who made the grade!) Mary Steenburgen, best known for her role as Joan's mother in the TV show 'Joan of Acadia', is the wife of actor Ted ('Cheers') Danson, and as far as I know there is no Mary Peters on Broadway. Maybe you were thinking of Bernadette Peters?

Answer: Mary Tyler Moore

Mary Tyler Moore starred in the hugely-popular Dick van Dyke Show, playing Laura Petrie, wife to Dick van Dyke's Rob Petrie. She went on to star in her own 'Mary Tyler Moore show' as Mary Richards, who worked at fictional TV station in Minneapolis. A diabetic, she has been a major spokesperson for the Diabetes Foundation. Mary Hartman is the title role of a quirky TV show called, strangely enough, 'Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman'. Mary Kate Olsen is one half of the Olsen twins who appeared as one character in TV's 'Full House', and Mary Anderson was an actress who appeared in several films in the 1940s.

Answer: Mary Pickford

Mary Pickford was born with the rather plain name of Gladys Smith in Toronto in 1892. Her father deserted the family when little Gladys was three, and her mother Charlotte worked as a seamstress and ran a boarding house to support herself and her three children.

She hit pay dirt when Gladys, through the kind offices of one of the boarders, made her stage debut at age seven and reigned supreme as a child actress in Toronto, appearing in a series of melodramas. Charlotte gave up seamstressing and boarding-house keeping, became a full time stage mother, and moved to the U.S., touring with her three youngsters - Gladys, Lottie and Jack.

In 1909, Gladys (who had changed her name by then) auditioned for D.W. Griffith's Biograph Company film 'Pippa Passes'.

She didn't get the part, but D.W. signed her to a contract, paying her the then-enormous sum of $10.00 a day. Soon Pickford was the most popular star on the Biograph circuit, and her role in 'Tess of the Storm Country', a full-length feature film made in 1914 set her firmly on the road to stardom.

She went on to become the biggest box office draw in Hollywood. She was married three times; first to actor Owen Moore, then to the dashing actor Douglas Fairbanks, and finally to actor Buddy Rogers. An astute businesswoman, Pickford founded United Artists (with Charlie Chaplin, Fairbanks and Griffiths) and after she retired from acting she continued to work as a producer.

Answer: Mary Lou Retton

The winner of the all-round gold medal in the 1984 women's gymnastics at the 1984 Olympics, Mary Lou Retton was the first female American gymnast to win Olympic gold. She became the darling of the media, who fell in love with the gutsy (she'd had knee surgery just prior to the Games) just-under-four foot nine, 16 year old. Mary Comenici? No, that's a reference to Mary Lou's inspiration, Nadia Comenici. Mary Kay is a brand of home sale cosmetics, and Rettin is a common misspelling of Retton's last name.

Answer: Mary Mallon

Born in County Tyrone, Ireland, in 1869, Mary Mallon emigrated to the U.S. in 1883, and between 1900 and 1907 she worked as a cook in private homes. During that time she infected 22 people with typhoid, and one of them died of the disease. At that time, it was not well-known that a healthy person could be a carrier of a disease and infect others. Mary vehemently denied that there was anything wrong with her, and the authorities of the day were hard-pressed to deal with the case. In the end, they quarantined her for three years, releasing her on the proviso that she never work as a cook again.

Mary ignored the ban, and in 1915 took a job as a hospital cook, infecting 25 more people, two of whom died. At that time, she was quarantined for life. She became quite a media celebrity, and it was journalists who dubbed her Typhoid Mary. When she died in 1938, she was still carrying live typhoid bacteria. Nowadays, the term Typhoid Mary is applied to any healthy carrier of a disease.

Answer: Mary Baker Eddy

Mary Baker Eddy was born in New Hampshire, U.S.A. in 1821. While still young she developed a chronic illness, and this brought about a strong interest in biblical accounts of healing. In 1866, after a serious injury, she made an unexpected recovery, and turned again to the Bible to explore the themes of faith healing.

She was firmly convinced by this experience and her subsequent studies of scripture that faith and prayer could heal any disease or injury. In 1879, she founded the Church of Christ, Scientist. For the remainder of her life she devoted her time and energy to her church and to writing on the themes of faith and healing.

In 1908 she established the Christian Science Monitor, a non-denominational newspaper that has become very influential.