Barkley, Mary Starr

Mary Starr Barkley was a life-long resident of Austin whose penchant for local history led her to write numerous colorful books, articles, and essays about her hometown and Central Texas. Known to friends and colleagues as "Mamie", she liked to refer to herself as a "housewife-historian".

Barkley's roots in Austin extended back four generations. She was born in 1907 to James Patrick Starr and Mary Ellen Dolan Starr (Nellie), devout Irish Catholics who belonged to St. Mary's Parish in Austin. Mary attended St. Mary's Cathedral School until her graduation in 1923. Her close ties to the Catholic Church greatly influenced both her historical research and her charitable activities throughout the rest of her life.

Mary attended the University of Texas for two years and then went to work for Austin National Bank where she met her future husband, Fred C. Barkley. The two were married in 1930. During World War II, when Fred was in service, Mary began to write fiction and essays. One of her favorite personal anecdotes concerns the time in 1946 that she sent out three articles and received a check for each one. "After that", she said, "I could never quit writing." She regularly sold stories, essays and articles to magazines such as The Cattleman, Farm and Ranch, Catholic Digest, the Houston Chronicle Sunday Magazine, and the Atlanta Journal Magazine .

Mary Starr Barkley wrote predominantly about Austin and the surrounding communities. She liked to set out at about nine o'clock in the morning one day each week and drive to communities within a fifty mile radius of Austin. She conducted a substantial amount of her research through oral interviews and enjoyed talking to "old timers" who could tell her all about the history of their communities. Barkley's method of history writing was to weave human interest stories into traditional date-oriented narratives; she called this style her "trademark". Barkley also carried a camera with her during her travels and took many of the pictures that accompanied her articles.

In addition to her work as an amateur historian, Barkley was involved in several organizations, many of which were affiliated with the Catholic Church. In 1950, she helped organize the Seton Hospital Auxiliary to which she ultimately gave over 17,000 hours of her time during a 30-year period. In 1950, Barkley also helped organize the Friends of the Adoration Convent, a group that served as both the auxiliary and the fundraising arm of the Austin Adoration Convent. In her later years, she served as the Chair of the Travis County Historical Survey Committee, an organization dedicated to the preservation of the historical buildings within Travis County.

Barkley was the author of several published works including: Fifty Years of the Seton Hospital (1952), O ne Hundred Years: The History of St. Mary's Cathedral (1952), The History of Travis County and Austin, 1839-1899 (1963), A History of Central Texas (1970), St. Mary's Church (now a Cathedral) (1972), The History of St. Mary's Cathedral, 1874-1974 (1974), and numerous essays and articles published in local and national periodicals. She also wrote a book on the history of the Austin National Bank, and tried her hand at fiction. In addition to her activities as a writer, Barkley conducted extensive genealogical research about her own family and composed an unpublished family history, "A Four Staff Family".

Principle organizations Barkley belonged to include: Seton Hospital Auxiliary, the Travis County Historical Survey Committee, the Adoration Convent, Austin National Bank, and St. Mary's Cathedral Parish.

Mary Starr Barkley succumbed to cancer in 1981.

From the guide to the Mary Starr Barkley Papers AR. V. 006., 1836-1981, (Austin History Center, Austin Public Library, )