There was an incident that happened to Mary as a young child that she would never forget, and due to the incident, Mary wanted to get an education more so then than ever. .
A white family employed Mary's mother. Sometimes, she would take Mary over to play with her employer's daughter, but one day something happened and it marked Mary's soul for the rest of her life. "Mary picked up a book while she was playing with a white child, whose parents employed Mary's mother. "The white child grabbed the book and told Mary she couldn't have it because African Americans couldn't read" (Botsch 1). It was then that Mary decided she wanted to move up society's ladder so she would need a good education.
A few years later, a woman in Detroit decided that she would pay for all of Mary's expenses at a school in North Carolina called Scotia Seminary. After Mary attended Scotia Seminary, "she received a scholarship to the Moody Bible Institution in Chicago, where she continued to be a higher achiever" (Botsch 1). Mary's original plans were to become a missionary and live in Africa, but there were no positions for African Americans so, Mary decided to continue on with her education. .
However, Mary finally completed her studies at Moody Bible Institution; "[s]he graduated from Moody Bible Institution in 1895 and, afterward, taught school in Georgia" (qtd. in Hudson and Wesley 5). When Mary taught in Georgia, she worked under a teacher named Lucy Laney, and as a result, Mary "gained a reputation as an "enthusiastic" teacher who held "Mission School" classes for children gathered off the streets on Sunday afternoons" (Botsch 1). She continued to teacher there for a year. Soon after teaching school in Georgia, she taught school in South Carolina, Florida, and later in Illinois.
If it were not for Mary being sent to Sumter, South Carolina, she would have never met her husband. "Mary was sent next to Sumter, South Carolina where she taught for two years at Kendall Institution before marrying Albertus Bethune in 1898" (Botsch 1).
