Mary Brecht Pulver
- Writer
Mary Brecht Pulver was born in Lancaster County, PA.,
the oldest of five children born to Milton J. and Mary Wolfe Brecht.
Her father was a school principle who would go on to serve as
Superintendent of Schools for Lancaster County and later as Public
Service Commissioner for the State of Pennsylvania. Mary may have been
born in either Mount Joy or Lancaster, cities her parents lived in
around the time of her birth. Mary gained her higher education at
Pennsylvania State Normal School and The School of Applied Arts in
Philadelphia. After Mary's graduation literary success would not be
long in coming after her short stories began appearing in several
national publications including The Saturday Evening Post.
Her short story "The Path of Glory" won critical acclaim and was considered one of the best short stories published in 1917. Mary's "Dwarf and the Cobbler's Sons" and her 1914 poem "The Spring Lady" were also well received by the reading public. During the First Word War she wrote a number of popular jingles for the Liberty War Drive.
Mary had an early relationship with the fledgling film industry when she allowed the Biograph and Essanay studios to adapt a number of her Saturday Evening Post stories into film. She soon tired of this process and eventually severed her ties to the film industry.
On 27 December, 1906, she married George Winfield Pulver, a Doctor of Dental Surgery who would eventually set up his practice in Binghamton, N.Y. In 1922, while fishing in New York's Catskill Mountains, Dr. Pulver drowned after he lost his footing and fell into the rain gorged Beaver Kill River. Mary along with several others watched helplessly from the river's bank as he was wept away.
Mary Brecht Pulver died on 16 July, 1926 at the Lankanau Hospital in Philadelphia after a failed operation. She was survived by her fourteen year-old son, Gordon Winfield Pulver (1912-1983).
Her short story "The Path of Glory" won critical acclaim and was considered one of the best short stories published in 1917. Mary's "Dwarf and the Cobbler's Sons" and her 1914 poem "The Spring Lady" were also well received by the reading public. During the First Word War she wrote a number of popular jingles for the Liberty War Drive.
Mary had an early relationship with the fledgling film industry when she allowed the Biograph and Essanay studios to adapt a number of her Saturday Evening Post stories into film. She soon tired of this process and eventually severed her ties to the film industry.
On 27 December, 1906, she married George Winfield Pulver, a Doctor of Dental Surgery who would eventually set up his practice in Binghamton, N.Y. In 1922, while fishing in New York's Catskill Mountains, Dr. Pulver drowned after he lost his footing and fell into the rain gorged Beaver Kill River. Mary along with several others watched helplessly from the river's bank as he was wept away.
Mary Brecht Pulver died on 16 July, 1926 at the Lankanau Hospital in Philadelphia after a failed operation. She was survived by her fourteen year-old son, Gordon Winfield Pulver (1912-1983).