Owen, Mary

Mary Owen resided in Guatemala for over 30 years as the wife of Captain William Owen, manager of the Northern Transportation Company in Livingston. She met George Byron Gordon when he traveled to Central America for the fourth Copan Expedition of the Museum of Free Science and Art(later the Penn Museum). Mary and her husband befriended Gordon and assisted him in acclimating to Guatemala. Later, when Gordon became Director of the Museum, he and Mary Owen renewed their friendship. Gordon requested her assistance in providing the text of native folktales for publication in the Museum Bulletin. Despite her protestations and wishes that her name not be used, Owen not only recorded the tales, but provided notes and explanations from her valuable years of experience living in the Alta Verapaz region.

Mary Owen's folktales, with attribution, were published in 1938 as a children's book co-authored by Marie Hendrick Jessup and Leslie Bird Simpson. Her work is also recognized in the book, "Maya Folktales from the Alta Verapaz", edited by Elin C. Danien.

From the guide to the Mary Owen Guatemalan folktales collection, Bulk, 1915, 1915-1991, (University of Pennsylvania: Penn Museum Archives)