Mary was born on March 13, 1888 at Echo, Utah a daughter of Lorenzo Richins and Lissey Barber. Her father came to America from England in 1866 and across the plains in the Newell K. Whitney handcart company.

He worked for two years then sent back to England for his sweetheart, Lissey Barber. She came across the plains with a handcart company in 1869. They were married in the old Endowment House in Salt Lake City and then asked by the President of the Church to settle Henefer, Utah.

They had three children and lost all within two weeks to diphtheria. They then had five more children, Mary being next to the youngest.

Mary lived at Echo for the first few years of her life and then the family moved to Grouse Creek, Utah where she was raised. Her eyes were always bad so the teachers had to set her at the first of the class in school.

As a young girl she was playing with some children on a haystack. One of the boys dropped a bolt and it hit her on the head making a large hole. She always had a scar on her head from this accident.

The first position she held in the church was in the religion class when she was eleven years old, teaching the small children.

She married David Edward Tracy of Yost, Utah on October 9, 1906, in the Salt Lake Temple. They traveled by wagon with a sheep camp on it and the trip took two days from Yost to Ogden where they stopped to put up fruit. They then went on to Salt Lake City and were accompanied by Dave’s father and sister.

Three days after they were married, her new husband left on a mission to the Southern States. Mary went back to Grouse Creek and lived with her parents while Dave was gone. When he returned they lived in Yost, Utah.

Three children were born to them:  Lorenzo David on July 28, 1909 in Grouse Creek, Utah, then Herbert Lester on July 9, 1911 in Yost and then they moved back to Grouse Creek where Bernice was born on September 23, 1913. They moved back and forth between these two towns for the first few years of their married life because of the work Dave had to do.

They finally settled in Yost until 1920 when they were asked to move to Malta, Idaho to help set up the Stake there.

At this home they entertained the visiting Brethren from Salt Lake at Conference time besides all the relatives that came from the other towns. Many times she had over twenty extra people at one time.

In Malta she worked in the Stake Primary, MIA Religion class, Relief Society and Sunday School. Many times she worked in most of the organizations at the same time.

Their farm was two miles south of town and she either had to hitch up a team of horses to the buggy or walk as she never learned to drive a car. To do her visiting teaching she drove a team and buggy and it would take her all day to visit their route.

In 1936 they moved to Burley, Idaho because of her husband’s health. They built a home and lived there until his death in 1954. After her husbands death she sold her home and moved to Prineville, Oregon and made her home with her daughter, Bernice until 1969.