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MARY HIGGINS CLARK (IMAGE WITH INFO : WIKIPEDIA)

Mary Higgins Clark was an American writer  of suspense novels. She was born Mary  Theresa Eleanor Higgins on December 24,  1927.With her debut suspense novel, Where Are the Children?, in its seventy-fifth printing,  each of her 51 books was a bestseller in the United States and several European nations. As of 2015, all of her books were still in print.

Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins happened to be the second child and the only daughter of Nora C. (Durkin) and Luke Joseph Higgins. Her brother, Joseph, was older than her by a year and a half. She had a younger brother, John. Her mother was born in America and also of Irish ancestry, and her father was an immigrant from Ireland.

She took a keen interest in writing at a young age of seven when she started composing poems and short plays to be enacted by her friends. She also started maintaining a journal to record the daily events in her life.

The family had a property in the Bronx and a vacation home on Long Island Sound, and  they also earned income by running an Irish pub. Despite the fact that Higgins Clark was  just a baby when the Great Depression  started, her family initially escaped  unaffected and even insisted on feeding the jobless men who came to their home. When Higgins Clark turned 10, the family  started to run into financial difficulties as a result of many of their patrons who couldn’t pay the bar tabs they had racked up. 

Higgins Clark’s father was compelled to fire a number of employees and put in extra overtime, spending hardly more than a few hours per day at home. The Higgins family suffered a major setback when Mary discovered that her father, Luke Joseph Higgins, passed away in his sleep in 1939. Mary’s widowed Mom, Nora, was unable to get a job as she was 52 and had not worked for 14 years. Mary Higgins Clark had to give up her bedroom so that her mother could get rent from paying boarders. To add to their misfortune, Mary’s older brother, Joseph, had injured his foot over a piece of metal, leading to severe osteomyelitis. When the young boy needed numerous  blood transfusions, Higgins Clark and her  mother fervently prayed for him, and their  neighbours flocked to their home in great  numbers to donate blood. Joseph Higgins  lived despite the physicians’ grim warnings. Higgins Clark believed that their prayers were important in his recovery.

Mary Higgins Clark believed that their prayers were important in his recovery.

Higgins Clark obtained a scholarship from the Congregation de Notre Dame de Montreal to attend the Villa Maria Academy after she graduated from Saint Francis Xavier Grammar School. She started working as a switchboard operator at the Shelton Hotel and used to listen to the residents’ conversation. Her earnings were not enough for the family. Her mother took up a job as a babysitter to supplement the family income. Her older brother, Joseph, joined the Navy in 1944 after his graduation. Later on, he died after contracting spinal meningitis. His mother started receiving pension, thus, easing the pressure on Mary Higgins Clark.

Mary Higgins married Warren Clark in 1949 who died in 1964. Later, she married Raymond Ploetz in 1978 and they separated in 1986. She married again in 1996 to John J. Conheeney who died in 2018. She had 5 children. Her daughter, Carol Higgins Clark, and daughter in law, Mary Jane Clark are also authors by profession.

Mary Higgins Clark breathed her last on January 31, 2020 (aged 92) at Naples, Florida, U.S. Nevertheless, she still lives forever in the hearts of her numerous admirers.

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