Mary Belle Blake

🕊️ The Life and Legacy of Mary Belle Blake (1908–1979)

Faithful Daughter | Steady Soul | Factory Matriarch in a Changing America

At precisely 3 p.m. on January 16, 1908, in a working-class neighborhood on East Georgia Street in Indianapolis, Indiana, a baby girl made her entrance into the world. She was named Mary Belle Blake, the second daughter of Charles Arthur Blake, a driver and solicitor, and Mary Elizabeth Beyl, a homemaker with roots in the growing Beyl family of Columbus. At the time of her birth, her father was 30, her mother 29—a young couple navigating city life as the Industrial Age thundered on.

By the time the 1910 census rolled around, two-year-old Mary Belle had joined her older sister, Helen Marie, at their new home on Bates Street in Center Township. Their father was now a wagon driver for an oil company—a steady job in an age of churn—and the family carved out its place amid the soot and heartbeat of Indianapolis.

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💍 A Wedding, A New Name, and the Great Depression

On November 23, 1928, Mary Belle married Richard L. McNally, a young man from Rochester, New York, who’d found his way to Indiana. She was 20 years old, poised at the edge of the roaring twenties just as the world began to tilt toward economic catastrophe. By the time of the 1930 census, the newlyweds were living in a modest home on Randolph Street in Indianapolis. Mary kept house while Richard worked—together, they laid the foundations of what would become a close-knit family of five.

But not everything in those early years was easy. In June of 1934, Mary Belle’s name appeared in a legal notice in The Kokomo Tribune, tied to a pending estate case. She was summoned to appear before a judge—a sharp reminder that the Great Depression spared no one, not even young mothers trying to build a future.

On Tuesday, June 05, 1934, a legal notice in The Kokomo Tribune notified Mary that she was a defendant in a cause pending in the Howard Circuit Court entitled Union Bank & Trust Company regarding a petition to sell real estate to pay debts.  The notification said she needed to appear before the judge on July 14, 1934.

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🛠️ Kokomo and the War Years

By 1940, Mary and Richard had moved north to Kokomo, Indiana, settling into a house at 1026 S Plate Street. Their household had grown to include three young sons—Richard Jr., Ralph, and Robert—and Mary Belle now juggled motherhood with the daily challenges of wartime uncertainty. Though she didn’t work for pay that year, the strength of her presence undergirded the McNally home.

When Richard registered for the WWII draft in the early 1940s, he listed their Plate Street address and his job at Continental Steel—a position that tied the family to Kokomo’s industrial heartbeat. Steel, radios, and the hum of manufacturing defined the town. And Mary Belle, true to form, adapted right alongside it.

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⚙️ The Working Years: A Woman at the Line

According to the 1950 City Directory for Kokomo, Indiana, Mary and Richard lived at 1423 S Wabash Avenue, and Richard worked as a steelworker at Continental Steel.

The 1950 census paints a vivid picture of post-war life. Now living at 1423 Wabash Street, Mary Belle was no longer just a homemaker—she had stepped into the workforce. She was a Receiving Inspector at a radio factory, likely Delco Electronics, where she logged 40 hours a week and earned $2,268 annually—a meaningful income for a woman of her time.

With three boys under her roof and a husband still working steel, Mary stood at the center of a shifting America: a woman balancing tradition with the demands of a new era. Her labor, her grit, and her quiet consistency helped carry the McNallys into the modern age.

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🌹 Community, Faith, and Final Days

In the years that followed, Mary Belle remained a constant. She and Richard moved once more, this time to 1911 W. Madison Street, where they lived out their later years together. She was active in her church—First Christian Church—and joined the Order of Eastern Star as well as UAW Local 292, suggesting a woman deeply rooted in faith, fellowship, and labor rights.

On May 31, 1979, at Howard Community Hospital, Mary Belle Blake McNally passed away at the age of 71. Her death certificate notes complications related to the bladder and dehydration, but the obituary written in The Kokomo Tribune remembers her for so much more: her long-standing marriage, her sons (who survived her), and her employment at Delco.

She was laid to rest on June 2, 1979, in Sunset Memory Gardens Cemetery, in Section 2, Row 12, beside her husband. The inscription on her Find A Grave record names her sons—Richard, Ralph, and Robert—who no doubt carried with them the memory of a woman whose strength wasn’t loud but unshakable.

💌 Want to Share a Memory?

If you knew Mary Belle, or have stories passed down through the family, I’d love to hear from you. Please visit her Introduction Page to share a memory, a photo, or even just a kind thought. Together, we can honor the life she lived.

Until next time,

~Kris

🕯️ Revisited by Bones

Steadfast and Steel-Spined | Daughter of the Machine Age | Unsung Matriarch

Mary Belle never made headlines. She didn’t write books, win awards, or chase glory. But she showed up—every day, through world wars and economic collapse, through factory floors and family dinners. She was the kind of woman history forgets, but families remember. And now, we remember her here.