MS01.01.03.B02.F23.069

2.
pride that develops out of important work is certainly a thing to admire", he noted.
The Foundation's one and only director was Miss Mary Beattie Brady of Birch Hill
Road, Patterson, New York in Putnam County. During her tenure as director of the Foundation, Brady resided during the week in a modestly appointed apartment at
67 Park Avenue South in New York City. She commuted by train to her home in
Putnam County on weekends and took great pride in being "too busy with the work
of the Foundation to learn to drive the automobile".
Brady was born in Sitka, Alaska, an island community in the Gulf of Alaska
off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. Her father was territorial governor
of the region. Although Brady seldom granted personal interviews, as talk always centered on the work of the Foundation, [*in most cases*] her age and the subject of her personal
life [was of great interest to the] has remained a secret in the New York cultural community. She talked extensively
about people, the direction their lives should take and the programs she thought
the Foundation should engage in in relation to the numerous requests [she] it received,
but seldom did [she] Brady speak of her age or politics.
Records of [her] Brady's actual birthdate are not easy to come by. Her politics could
be ascertained by an often and unendearing reference made to President Franklin D.
Roosevelt as one whose humanity was dwarfed by that of his wife, Eleanor. She
was a staunch Republican who believed in the party of Lincoln. As to the subject
of age, a letter addressed to President Rufus Clement of Atlanta University in
1967 speaks of [her] Brady's birthdate and retirement. It states :

"I retire because it obviously is time, for I will
be seventy-three at the end of April. But I do so in
many respects with great sorrow, because I have not
been able to have the Foundation come anywhere near the
degree of success I would have like to have seen its
pilot operations achieve." .3

One could surmise from the contents of Brady's letter that her age is now 95 as
she is still alive residing in a rest home in Putnam County, New York. 4 Her
home on Birch Hill Road is still attended to by members of her immediate family.

4. Letter dated October 27, 1987 to Earl Hooks, Art Department, Fisk University,
from Michael W. Stout
states that "The former Executive and Operating Director (of the Harmon
Foundation, meaning Mary B. Brady)...is very elderly and in poor health."

[left margin: 3. page 1 of letter to Dr Rufus Clement, President of
Atlanta University, Atlanta, Ga. [illegible] [illegible] MBB, dated
3/29/67.]