Born in 1868 to a prominent family in Hartford, Connecticut, Mary was raised in the sophisticated East - but with her 1896 marriage to Stephen Penrose, a Congregational minister and president of the fledging Whitman College, she committed herself to a life in what was still the western frontier.

In small-town Walla Walla in the wheatlands of southeastern Washington, Mary Penrose raised six children, assisted her husband as he led Whitman College to a place of national prominence among liberal arts colleges, served as a national leader of the YMCA movement as it worked vigorously to empower American women.

Diana May will be portraying this exceptional woman.