Mary Ann’s father Thomas McGinn, born in County Sligo, Ireland, had emigrated to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He became the Montreal jailer and it was in the jail that Mary Ann was born in 1845. Her mother was born Abastenia Philbin, also from an Irish family. Abastenia Philbin’s mother’s maiden name had been St. Leger and this was used a middle name by many of the family, including Mary Ann. After graduating from normal school, Mary Ann taught school in Montreal and at the Canadian Literary Institute in Woodstock, Ontario, teaching French, English and drawing. She married pastor and educator Joseph W. A. Stewart in 1875. The Stewarts became American citizens in 1887, as Joseph had become dean of the Rochester Theological Seminary. Mary Ann’s diaries cover the last twenty-two years of her life. The diaries became an obsession with her son Alexander and eventually, of her grandson David Smithson Stewart. The diaries were transcribed by Elizabeth Hoisington Stewart in 1981 and photocopies of her work are what comprise this collection. As she said: “My hope in undertaking this is to capture for her descendants something of her personality and of the life of a Baptist minister’s wife in turn of the century Rochester, New York.”