“I had to go downtown just to show everybody that the rumor wasn’t true,” Mary Frances Terry said.

That was several months ago when the word was out that she had died, but as was the case when the same thing was said of Mark Twain, the rumor was greatly exaggerated.

Mary Frances admits that it was really nice to find out that so many people cared.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “People started calling — and Charles Riles called from the funeral home to tell me the news was all over town.”

The episode did give her cause for reflection. It made her wonder who would come when it really happens. It made her wonder if she would draw a crowd.

Mary Frances was born into the Dent family 81 years ago in the Vicksburg Infirmary, which was operated by her grandfather Dr. B.B. Martin Sr., and she was listed on the records for a while as “Baby Dent.” There are friends who still call her that.

Her many‑faceted life is reflected in her heritage. One side, the Martins (pronounced Mar‑tan) were French and rather formal; the other side, the Dents, were salt‑of‑the-earth Southerners from Dentville in Jefferson County.

Mary Frances was 19, had just finished two years at Stephens College in Columbia, Mo., when she won a $2 bet and the man who was her husband for the next 58 years. She was working for L.C. Latham and was told to take a letter to her father’s law office for Burkitt Martin. When she got there, she saw a young man sitting in the library and she asked if he was Martin.

“He said, ‘No, I’m Stan Terry,’ and I said hello and took the letter and gave it to the secretary,” Mary Frances recalled. The girls in the office asked if she had spoken to him, and she said yes.

There were four women working there, and Marjorie Ring was spearheading a bet to see which one could get a date with Stan. They asked Mary Frances if she wanted to join in.

“Back then, $2 was a lot of money,” she said, “and I’d like to win that.” She knew he drank coffee at the Elite Cafe downtown on Washington Street, so she went there and asked the owner, Frank Saines, if he would make some excuse when Stan came in so they would have to sit together. Tell him you’re fixing the booths, or something, she suggested, and Saines agreed.

When Stan Terry came in and sat down, Saines went over and made some excuse and asked if the lady could sit with him. He was happy to have her join him, he said.

“We started talking, and he proposed a date after the Fourth of July — he had one then — and I said it would be OK,” she said. The problem was she already had a date for that time, and her mother had admonished her to never break a date. Her date, however, was really just a good friend and he didn’t mind breaking it when she told him she was really interested in this man she had met.

“We hit it off right away,” she said, so her plans to go to the University of Missouri and major in journalism were scrapped and she entered Ole Miss. She had been there only three days when Stan appeared, told her he loved her and wanted to marry her and was afraid if she stayed at school she’d find somebody else, “and I said OK,” left school and went home and told her father.

No, indeed, Mr. Dent said — she was too young. Stan was persistent, and as they were driving down Clay Street he stopped the car, went to a phone and called Joe Canizaro, who had a jewelry store. He asked him to open the store so he could buy an engagement ring.

“And I got a ring,” Mary Frances said.” He came in the rain, wearing his pajamas and a rain coat and hat and opened the store. We went back and showed my father, who was a bit irritated, but my Uncle Robbie told him, ‘You can’t fight it.’ My father replied that I couldn’t marry until I was 20 — and I said OK.’

That was in September, and she and Stan had known each other only about two months, but on Dec. 22, 1949, they were married at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church.

It was Mary Frances’ 20th birthday.

“And I did collect my $2,” she said.

There have been numerous highlights in life, other than getting married and having three children — Marilyn, Stan III and Robert. One of them was meeting Eleanor Roosevelt and introducing her to the student body when the first lady visited Stephens College.

“She was sweet, wonderful and understanding,” she said, “and I was both thrilled and scared. We talked about everything.”

What made it even more memorable was that Mary Frances remembered sitting with her grandfather when she was a little girl listening to President Roosevelt’s “Fireside Chats” on the radio.

She’s always been interested in politics, and the Dent side of the family carved their name in history in Mississippi in various local positions, and distant cousin Julia in Missouri became Mrs. U.S. Grant, so it should have been no surprise when Mary Frances entered politics.

“I was disturbed when George Rogers left the Legislature, and nobody was really running for the job,” she said. “He was on the education committee, and that was a big priority of mine.”

Stan told her, “Well, do something about it,” and she did. She was encouraged to run by some friends at the courthouse, “and I thought, ‘I don’t have a prayer. I can’t run,’ but I did. I beat four men. It shocked everybody,” including Buddie Newman, speaker of the house, who said “What do you think you’re doing?”

She was the first woman Republican in the Mississippi House of Representatives. There was one other woman, a Democrat, from Meridian. Mary Frances was named to the education committee.

Her major accomplishment, she feels, was sponsoring the breakfast program for the schools. She saw a need there because of poor mothers who went to work so early who had neither the time nor the money to properly provide for their children. Mary Frances said she knew that a hungry child couldn’t learn.

She’s still interested in the Republican Party though no longer active except in supporting such friends as Thad Cochran and Delbert Hosemann. When she announced her candidacy as a Republican, she said, one family friend almost died, “But I knew it was the wave of the future.”

The desire for education has long been strong in her family. Her grandmother was only 17 when she was the schoolmarm in a one‑room facility at Dentville, and was told on her way to her job from Martinsville to watch out for those Dent boys — “They were kind of rough.” One of those boys, however, came to her sheepishly telling her he didn’t know how to read, and he was 12 years old. She promised to teach him — and she did — and she also married him and put him through law school.

“My great‑grandmother told her four or five boys, ‘You’ve got to go to law school. If you can’t do anything else, you can always be a lawyer,’” Mary Frances said, adding that the one who went into business instead made the most money. The pursuit of law continues in her family as several grandchildren are in law school.

One of the hardest things she ever did, she said, was to find hostesses for the first few Miss Mississippi pageants in Vicksburg. She had gone with her husband and Mayor Johnny Holland to the Gulf Coast where the pageants were held, but there was practically no interest in them. Holland decided to get the pageant moved to Vicksburg and was successful, but arrangements included hostessing. Mary Frances was head hostess for about a dozen years, and the friendships she made have endured. She’s still in touch with Mary Ann Mobley, who went on to win the Miss America title in 1959.

Mary Frances loves to cook, and that began when she was about 6 years old and would go to the Hotel Vicksburg’s kitchen and watch the cooks. Her father was president of the corporation that owned the hotel, and later the family had The Magnolia and then Delta Point on South Washington Street. Both were noted for fine dining.

“Mother likes to make people happy,” daughter Marilyn said, “and in the South, food is a way to make people happy.”

Among her souvenirs is a letter from President Ronald Reagan, and among her most vivid memories are two episodes, one devastating, the other uplifting. She felt totally helpless when she saw the aftermath of Hurricane Camille “because I couldn’t do anything. The most uplifting was when she was on a train with Letty Fry coming from North Carolina when the announcement was made that World War II was over. The train was in Knoxville, Tenn., and we kissed every soldier. The train never moved. We danced all night.”

Life has never been boring, Mary Frances said, adding, “I try to think positive.” Going to the store with her, Marilyn said, “is a social gathering at Kroger. Picking up milk and eggs is an hour and a half process, because she knows everybody.

She doesn’t use e‑mail or the Internet, but she keeps up with friends and family by telephone, and she knows what goes on at home and in the rest of the world by reading The Vicksburg Post and the Wall Street Journal each day — “and the Jackson paper just to see who died.”

She was described by the late Jane Bodron as being as beautiful as Elizabeth Taylor, acting like Scarlett O’Hara, but could run General Motors. Her friends will tell you that not only is she nice to everyone, but she has quietly helped numerous people, evidence that her faith is real.

Mary Frances, without elaboration, simply states that she would like her legacy to be, “I cared about them.”

There’s another accomplishment that possibly no one else shares — and of this achievement she has pictures to prove it: In high school, she could walk across the football field on her hands.

“Well,” she said, “not quite all the way.”

•

Gordon Cotton is an author and historian who lives in Vicksburg.