Mary Anne Denison Cummins

Mary Anne Denison Cummins was born Aug. 14, 1926, in Delaware, Ohio, only child of Lonnis and Anne Mendenhall Denison. She attended boarding school at the Columbus School for Girls, graduated top of her class in 1944, and was inducted into the National Honor Society. She was the 3rd generation to go to Ohio Wesleyan U.; she pledged Kappa Alpha Theta, graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1948, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. On Sept. 8, 1950, she married fellow alum David Hastings Cummins, of Ben Avon, Pa. They settled in Delaware and raised two girls. Mary Anne found her passion as an empty nester: genealogy. She loved researching and solving genealogical mysteries. This was before the Internet, when everything was done via correspondence. She was the grandniece of highly acclaimed author, Mary Stanbery Watts (1868 - 1958), who wrote 13 novels and several short stories between 1907 and 1926. Sadly, she died of cancer on Nov. 3, 1998, just five years after the publication of her book.