Born near Battle Creek, Michigan, on May 24, 1845, Mary Anne Bryant became a district school teacher after her graduation from Battle Creek High School. In April 1865 she married Perry Mayo, with whom she settled on a farm in Marshall Township, Calhoun County. She and her husband were much interested in self-improvement and in community self-help and betterment organizations. In the early 1870s they became active in the Patrons of Husbandry (known as the Grange) and in the organization of Farmers╒ Institutes, and both were elected to offices in their county Grange. Mary Mayo in particular became a highly active and effective organizer for the Grange. She served as lecturer, as chairman of the woman╒s work committee, and from 1891 as chaplain of the state Grange, and she traveled constantly throughout Michigan, visiting township Granges and local gatherings of every sort to forward the work of the Grange.
Mayo was especially concerned with bringing women and children into full participation in Grange organizations and Farmers╒ Institute meetings. Under the aegis of the Grange she developed the ╥Fresh Air╙ plan whereby children of the urban poor were taken into Granger homes for country vacations. She labored long to establish separate women╒s meetings and courses within the Farmers╒ Institute framework, and she also succeeded, after more than ten years of effort, in securing the creation of a women╒s department (1897) in its own building (1900) at the Michigan State Agricultural College (now Michigan State University). She served also on the board of the Michigan State Industrial Home for Girls in Adrian. Mary Mayo died on April 21, 1903. In September 1931 a new dormitory for women at Michigan State College was named in her honor.
