There Was Something About Mary

She may not have had a permanent home, but it turns out “Downtown Mary” had plenty of neighbors.

About 100 of them jammed a funeral parlor Tuesday to bid farewell to the stooped, smiling, disheveled woman whose sweet humility made the streets a little less mean in this sprawling oil and cotton patch town of 275,000.

Mabel Elaine Neal, known as Downtown Mary because she was a fixture for decades along the broad avenues rimming the rail yards, died at 70 of heart trouble last week. The service drew police and business leaders; firefighters, who had twice saved her life in motel blazes, carried her casket. The mayor and City Council sent flowers.

People around here say that what they did for Mary was partly because of who she was, a kind and gentle soul who lived off handouts and carried a milk carton full of water to nourish plants in front of downtown shops, picking up litter along her way. And partly it was because of what Bakersfield is: “the biggest small town in America,” said Rita Baker, who works at Bakersfield Family Funeral Directors.

More blunt was Steve Swenson, a reporter at the local newspaper, the Californian, who came to town more than 20 years ago intending to stay only long enough to beef up his resume but somehow never left.

“People make fun of us as an armpit of California,” Swenson said. “We make up for that by caring for each other.”

One woman wrote a song for her. Others read poetry praising the simple public-spiritedness Mary displayed by sweeping sidewalks on her daily rounds through the aging central city.

A sweet-faced 10-year-old named Ericca Chavez stood in front of the crowded pews and said she cried when she heard Mary died. A bushy-bearded man named Kenneth, who smelled of the tequila his T-shirt advertised, said he lived on the streets with Mary. “She smiled at me every morning,” he said.

It’s Hard to Explain, Because She Never Did

There are homeless and street people throughout America, but few get a send-off like the one for Mary, who died in a motel room she’d lived in for two years.

The funeral service, the flowers, the burial plot were all donated. A doctor in town promised to raise money for a headstone.

Mary’s story is hard to explain, in part because she never bothered to do so herself. She turned aside questions about herself, telling those who asked that she was “Mary, just Mary.” To everyone she was Downtown Mary, the woman with sharp blue eyes who, rain or shine, sizzling heat or foggy cold, always wore the same drab brown coat. That was enough for the people who encountered her over the years. Because her story was unknown, others wrote it for her.

“I’d always see her walking the streets,” said Beth Reeves of Taft. Reeves said she once offered Mary a blanket, but the woman turned it down, saying she had enough to keep her warm. “You take that blanket and give it to someone else,” Mary told her. Then, “I got to hug her.”

Another woman said she used to take holiday meals to Mary, adding that she felt cheated because she’d known of her only for four years. Martin Morin, the former owner of MG Morin’s cafe, gave her breakfast. Laughter erupted in the room when another mourner said Mary refused food from her, apparently because she was getting fed at so many other places.

One woman had trouble speaking through her tears. She said that years ago, when her family didn’t have much money, she was on her way to buy a pair of shoes for her husband for Christmas. Passing Mary, she stopped and offered $8 to the street woman.

Mary refused it, saying, “Don’t you need that for your family?”

So what was it that inspired all these people to reach out to this street woman who was so secretive and shy that she never told anyone about her past?

All the mourners could say was that there was something in Mary’s blue eyes that drew them in, and in her smile, as warm and welcoming as she was personally mysterious, that made them pull their cars to the side of the road and get out to help her.

But their words revealed just as much about them. Bakersfield has changed since its economy was dominated by oil and agriculture.

Though it remains the carrot capital of the world, it has diversified and shopping mall-ified itself so much over the years that some longtime residents are angry at the way things have been allowed to change.

Still, locals say, at heart it is the same unassuming rest stop on California 99 that it was when Terrible Herbst attracted travelers with its rock-bottom gas prices.

Swenson, the reporter, said he was not surprised by the turnout at the funeral home. “I will never leave this town,” he said. “People are too nice.”

A Life Story Emerges at Funeral

Unexpectedly, as more people spoke, Mary’s own story began to take shape. One woman remembered Mary from the ‘70s, when she was living in Glendale.

Even then, her tidy habits were in place. She could be seen every morning cleaning up trash in front of shops. The woman moved to the San Joaquin Valley several years later. When an old friend from Glendale took a train for a visit, she found Mary on board. Asked where she was going, Mary was typically friendly but evasive.

Bakersfield, she said. Why? the woman asked. “I have a relative there,” was all Mary would say.

The next funeral speaker drew gasps when he revealed himself as Mary’s stepbrother, who had lived in Bakersfield for many years and had even taken note of the woman in the shabby brown coat without recognizing who it was.

“I grew up in Firth”--Mary’s Idaho hometown--”and knew her as a little girl,” said Patrick Williams. “She hardly ever talked to anyone.”

Somehow she landed in Glendale and then Bakersfield.

“If only we had known” she was in town, Williams said, fighting tears. “But maybe you were happier the way you were.”

“Anyway, that’s the story of a little girl that lived a tragic life. She’s my stepsister.”

Even Williams could not say what made her so introverted, or what experiences cast her into the streets. He did know one thing, he said. “She would have been proud to see all of you here.”