Mary Rose

Born and bred in the Pacific Northwest, Mary Rose sings for peace and progressive causes. Since the 1960s when she found her voice in the Womens Movement, Mary Rose performed at rallies, marches, coffee houses, bars, singer/songwriter workshops, women’s studies classes, and living rooms on the West Coast, New York, and England. Malvina Reynolds, Faith Petric, Barbara Thurber, Holly Near, Naomi Morena, Jane Keefer, and Yvonne Simmons followed Mary Rose’s mother, Rose Bresnan Hayward Pointon, as important musical influences during the second half of the twentieth century.

Mary Rose grew up with two sisters and their widowed mother in southern Oregon and eastern Washington State in the 1940s and 1950s. She married and raised three children with Frank Wesley. In the 1970s she struggled to live independently, performing alone or with others and accompanying herself on her guitar. Blessed with good health, confidence, and energy, Mary Rose survived by substitute teaching even as music dominated her life.

Although the Women’s Movement inspired her activism in the 1960s, the Peace Movement in the 1990s broadened Mary Rose’s reasons for singing and performing. Celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of Women’s Right to Vote with steadfast friend Barbara Drageaux as well as commemorating Susan B. Anthony’s birthday (February 15) and Women Suffrage Day (August 26) were important yearly events. Barbara encouraged and helped Mary Rose record songs and perform at special programs even as she resisted singing herself. They co-chaired the Portland branch of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, held vigils, and instigated actions together.

Mary Rose’s proudest achievements are the recordings, compact disc Woman Song, tape, and booklet Listen...Again! A limited edition tape, Listen to the Women for a Change was produced with Portland branch WILPF and sold out. Every recording was made with great help and encouragement from friends and family.

Comrades in WILPF and General Strike band have become Mary Rose’s reasons for activism. She continues standing with friends to protest war, picket for justice and peace, calling attention to the freedom of expressed opinion we citizens need to maintain in this country.