Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins, the only daughter and second child of Nora C. (Durkin) and Luke Joseph Higgins, was born on Christmas Eve in 1927, despite the fact that some sources incorrectly list the year as 1929.
Her mother was born in America and also of Irish ancestry, while her father was an immigrant from Ireland. The United States census records her age as 12 in April 1940, indicating that she was born in 1927 since it was the age she was at her last birthday when the census enumerators asked the relevant question.
She arrived almost a year and a half after Joseph, her elder brother. Three years later, her younger brother John came along.
She had a passion for writing from a young age, penning her first poem at the age of seven and frequently creating short plays for her friends to perform.
When Mary started journaling at age 7, she wrote in her first entry, “Nothing much happened today.”
The family had a property in the Bronx and a vacation home on Long Island Sound, and they supported themselves by running an Irish bar.
Did Mary Higgins Clark have children?
Mary devoted herself to short story writing while raising a family after quitting her career in 1949 to wed William Clark.
Mary wrote radio scripts to support her five children after her husband passed away in 1964 until a tutor suggested she try her hand at novel writing.
