Mary Dee Bradley

The 1930s were a relatively quiet period with regard to the feminist movement. The Great Depression made jobs scarce, and it largely was accepted that women needed to yield what jobs were available to those who society deemed natural breadwinners (men).

But in with the 1940s blew a world war and a tide change as it pertained to how women were perceived. Women served in each branch of the military during World War II, and many of those who didn’t serve worked in factories to produce crucial defense materials. Rosie the Riveter, Wonder Woman, and Eleanor Roosevelt served as role models – be they real or symbolic – for what women could represent and accomplish.

And into that era, Mary Dee Ingino Bradley was born on August 31, 1940 in Kansas City, Missouri. The only child of Mary Agnes Houlehan and Anthony Ingino, Mary Dee spent much of her life carrying that torch forward and serving in her own right as a very real symbol of inspiration and female empowerment. She passed away February 25, 2024 in Oceanside, California at the age of 83.

Mary Dee attended St. Augustine Grade School and Hogan High School in Kansas City, but it was the months she spent during several of her formative years staying with her cousins Bill, Angela Rose, and Paul Barbieri in Maysville, Missouri when Mary Dee first learned the wonders of exploration. She fondly recalled her time in the “country” – Maysville was all of an hour north of Kansas City – where she got an opportunity to play with neighborhood children and animals.

She learned not to be afraid of things that were different. She learned that she was capable of making it outside of the comforts of what was familiar. In that vein, she became a champion markswoman at the age of 13. Her rifle remains a family heirloom.

Mary Dee attended what then was known as Webster College in St. Louis for two years before transferring to Iowa State University, where she graduated with a degree in Home Economics and a minor in Art. For the rest of her life, Mary Dee remained an active and enthusiastic member of the Iowa State Alumni Association, and unconfirmed sources attribute the Cyclones’ 2024 Big 12 Men’s Basketball Tournament Championship victory to Mary Dee’s spiritual influence.

After college, Mary Dee worked for a few years at the Gas Service Co. in St. Joseph, Missouri before taking a summer job at a hotel at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona in 1969.

To put Mary Dee’s independent nature and courageousness in proper perspective: She was an adult female that moved more than 1,300 miles away from home with no support system to join or greet her, and she did so five years before the Equal Credit Opportunity Act became law in 1974 and allowed women to open bank accounts, apply for credit, and commit to a mortgage without needing a male co-signer.

She was fearless, and the generation of Barbieris, Inginos, Polsinellis, and Frys that succeeded her took notice during their own formative years.

In 1970, Mary Dee accepted a position with the Arizona Department of Education. She would go on to be come the director of the state’s nutrition program.

Mary Dee retired in 1990, one year after marrying Jack Bradley. Together, they embarked on a number of journeys, to include safaris in Africa, boat trips down the Amazon River, and views of Machu Picchu.

In health, they traveled seemingly all around the world. But in between those adventures, Mary Dee cared for Jack in the ways that devoted partners do. And later in life, when it was his turn, Jack reciprocated until the very end. Every day, there was not one without the other. Theirs is the type of bond many people never experience but often covet. They each knew how special the gift they shared was, even during times when one or the other couldn’t articulate it.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be held on April 2, 2024 at 10 a.m. at Visitation Parish, which is located at 5141 Main Street in Kansas City, Missouri. All are welcome, especially those inspired by Mary Dee to carry the torch forward from here.