The sixth child of Michael and Eleanor Gorey, Mary, was born at Ballarat on October 18, 1922. Her parents moved shortly after she was born to a potato and dairy farm at Dalmore in West Gippsland. Mary attended a tiny one-room school with about 50 other students.

Mary was a bright child and achieved her merit certificate (grade eight) at the early age of 12. She was too young to leave school and her parents could not afford for her to attend high school, so she spent the next two years helping the teacher to run classes.

Mary left home at the age of about 16 and lived for a time with her uncle Archie Sutherland and his wife Francie in Barkly Street, North Fitzroy, while working in High Street, Northcote. After a short time she went home to Fumina and helped her mother about the house.

A move back to Melbourne saw Mary working in an upmarket old women's home in Glenferrie Road, Malvern, and then for a doctor in McLeod.

When the 1939 bushfire struck, Mary was staying with (Sutherland) relatives at Castlemaine. She later lived with her sister Sheila in Whitby Street, West Brunswick, while working at the Brockhoff Biscuits factory in North Melbourne.

In 1942 Mary enlisted to serve in the Women's Australian Auxiliary Air Force where she worked as a cook catering for non-commissioned officers at Shepparton and Lake Boga. She was promoted during the war from ACW (air craft woman) to corporal.

After the war Mary attended a dance at Icy Creek where she saw an old acquaintance, timber cutter Lindsay Burns.

She couldn't stay at Icy Creek because there was no work, and left home again to live with Sheila. She was looking for work when Lindsay made a surprise visit to Melbourne, ostensibly on business. He proposed and the couple decided to get married there and then. The wedding took place at St John's Anglican Church in Melville Street, West Brunswick, on April 24, 1946.

Given the post-war austerity it was a low-key affair, with the minister having to gather witnesses from a cafe across the street. The newlyweds celebrated afterwards with a tea party at the house of Mary's sister Sheila and her husband Stan Thomas.

The couple began married life in a one-room hut at Tanjil Bren, which was enlarged when another hut was placed alongside. Their eldest child Dennis still shudders to think that his early days were spent living in this way.

Mary and Linds followed timber-felling jobs around various parts of Gippsland, including Darnum and Heyfield, before eventually settling at Moe where Linds went to work for the SEC. They had three more children: Roger, Andrew and Stephen. All the boys were born at Warragul.

Dennis went to primary school at Darnum and Heyfield, while the others were educated at Moe. After Linds retired, the boys chipped together to help their parents settle into a comfortable house at North Croydon.

Mary died on August 7, 1998.