Mary Boyce Temple was as prominent and as a well known a citizen at the time as a citizen could be in Knoxville.  She was born in 1856, the only child of Judge Oliver Perry Temple and Scotia Caledonia Hume Temple.  Both lines of parents come from long lines of distinguished and capable families both from Scotch lineage.  Mary was brought up in a home filled with culture, civic responsibilities, entertaining, and elegance and was well educated in her fathers library followed later at Vassar College which her father was ridiculed for doing as it was considered a waste to spend that kind of money on educating a mere girl.  However, she ended up being the first southerner to graduate from that prestigious college in 1887 ( which at the time was for women only) and went on to accomplish many things a typical male at that time could.  

Miss. Temple grew up in a huge, very handsome Italianate house called Melrose named by her parents after the ruined abbey in Scotland in which her mother had been born within sight of. Her father managed the estate meticulously as the adjoining farm and winding gardens with the house situated on what is now Hess Hall at the University of Tennessee.  Now Melrose Avenue is named for the house that has long been demolished and records seem to indicate that after the family moved out of the house and onto E. Cumberland Avenue it became the premiere location for art in the region known as the Art League of Knoxville.   

She came home after her schooling at Vassar in Poughkeepsie New York to find her mother in ill health so the two set forth for a traveling excursion in search of a climate, doctors, or sights to mend her.  They spent time in the Catskills and numerous beach environments.  Sometimes her mother did better, often not sometimes being completely unable to walk from swelling of the feet.  The correspondence between husband, invalid wife, and adult daughter during this time was prolific and still intact.  It’s clear that her mother had intended upon returning home as she instructed her husband not to buy their new home until the mother and daughter got back in an effort to make the household decisions herself.  Her mother died however while away in October 1889.  Mary returned home with the body of her beloved mother and she and her father erected a grand obelisk in her honor which still stands in Old Gray cemetery.   

Mary and her father continued to live alone but eventually moved from the Melrose farm to a smaller home located on the corner of E. Cumberland Avenue and Prince Street (now Market Street) directly behind the Bijou Theatre.   After her mothers death Mary stayed with her father helping him with his research and writings until his death 18 years later in 1907.  She lived in the same house she did with her father as well as each year holding residence for the social season (winter) in Washington D. C. and entertained lavishly for years at the Willard Hotel followed by the Mayflower Hotel.  She looked very proper and distinguished and carried herself with utmost aplomb yet lived her life as she saw fit irrespective of the fact she was an unmarried lady.   She was arguably the most traveled person in Knoxville at the time, male or female.  She represented Tennessee in every Exposition in the country for 30 years and in 1911 Governor Benton McMillan appointed her the state representative for the 1900 Paris World Exposition as well as Stockholm and Rio De Janeiro..  Ms. Temple was duly asked to do the same for the opening of the Panama Canal during Theodore Roosevelt’s term.  She served as a member of the Tennessee commission to the Atlanta Exposition in 1895 and was the first vice-president of the women’s board of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition in 1897.  She was also the only woman on the Jury of Higher Education at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904.  She was a regent of the Tennessee Daughters of the American Revolution for which she served until her death. Ms. Temple held many positions of honor including being a member of the Archaeological Institute of America, Authors League of America, Tennessee Historical Association, American Pen Women, the English Speaking Union, as well as the first president and founding member of Ossoli Circle.  Which became the first federated women’s club in the south and still holds meetings in the meeting house she helped get built near the Neyland Avenue dividing line between W. Cumberland Avenue and Kingston Pike (the road which her father supervised the construction of years earlier)  She was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from Lincoln Memorial University and was an honorary vice-president of the East Tennessee Farmers Convention for life for which her father founded years earlier as well.  In 1919 she donated $25,000 to the University of Tennessee for a plant research foundation as well as donated nearly her entire estate to UT upon her death to build an auditorium in honor of her mother. 

Ms. Temple seems to have made a conscious decision early in her life to forgo the typical path of a southern lady, housekeeper, and mother instead dedicating her life to education, historic preservation, patriotism, and women’s causes.  Given a gift of independence and freedom from the concentrated wealth of her father she was indeed able and capable of following her own way even in a time and world completely ruled by men, especially in the south.  She lived long enough to see women through to the right to vote in 1920 being an active member in the suffrage movement. 

Ms. Temple was known for her dignity, manners, and support of her community.  At one instance though she seems to have missed the point.  One account was that she had invited a local doctor for one her usual dinner parties in which he had to decline due to the fact Ms. Temple had left off his wife in the invitation.  When he replied that “I make it a habit to never attend a function with out the company of my wife”, she replied, “my dear man, when making a dinner list one simply has to draw the line somewhere.”   Mrs. Alice Howell who was a child and who’s aunt she was receiving piano lessons from every Sunday would see Ms. Temple who would ride the trolley to visit little Alice’s aunt for a light dinner and conversation stated she has a couple of distinctive memories of her.  The first being that she had excellent posture, was always impeccably dressed, and spoke with a commanding voice though always very polite and dignified.   However, she remembered also having always sat two rows behind her in church at the First Presbyterian Church on State Street.  Mrs.Howell remembers Ms. Temple sometimes dozing claiming to listen better with her eyes shut and that Ms. Temple seems to have always been on time to everything except church, always arriving conveniently ‘after’ the offering plate had been passed around, never before. 

Ms. Temple lived alone for 22 years after her father’s death having never married with few public mentions of beau’s or even a single mention of formal suitors.  There are many mentions however years earlier in her mother’s letters to her father while they traveled, about how Mary had many nights with friends there in their rented quarters or even out ‘on the town’.  It is not known if her friends were male or female, long or short term, amorous or simply friendly.  All is known is that she was the focal point of any gathering almost her whole life through with never a mention of illicit behavior. 

In 1925 during construction of the Andrew Johnson Hotel a small parcel of land south of it was up for sale.  All that stood there was a series of old frame houses that had been divided up into flats for lower income families and had been recently slated for demolition in lieu of a parking lot to attend the new hotel.  Although most Knoxvillians at the time were in favor of tearing down the longtime eyesore it was Ms. Temple that knew otherwise and set out to save the property with a  personal check for $100 to hold the it while she organized local women into action to purchase, save and completely restore what was the first frame house west of the Alleghenies and the original home of Governor William Blount, a revolutionary war veteran, a member of both the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, and being named the governor of the territory by General George Washington.  He also was a member of the Tennessee State Constitutional Convention and former Governor of the State. What is now known as Blount Mansion was basically saved by Ms. Temple’s efforts and support and is now considered “The Birthplace of Tennessee”.  It stands as the only National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service in Knoxville and the oldest museum in Knox County.  Basically Mary Boyce Temple was one of the founders of the preservation movement in Knoxville. 

Mary Boyce Temple died suddenly in her home at 623 W. Hill Avenue, May 15, 1929.  She was found the next morning by her servant of many years, Glen Graham, who had arrived at 6:30 for his morning duties to find Ms. Temple near her telephone.  Dr. Frank Monger announced she had been dead for several hours.  She succumbed to pulmonary edema of the heart and was 73 years of age despite newspaper accounts that she was 70.  “She had been complaining for a few days of not feeling well.”  She was laid to rest alongside her parents in Old Gray Cemetery under the first tall obelisk to the left after entering Knoxville’s second oldest and most celebrated cemetery, which still stands today as an elegant tower to the end of grand family line that dated back to the British Isles decorated with generation after generation of venerable and notable men and women.