Through It All...: We Made It Together!

By Xlibris US

Through It All is the story of a young California girl with high aspirations who instead finds her way into a world of disappointment, delusion and brokenness. Mary Snow's determination to change her circumstances brings contact with those who give courage to believe not only in herself but also in a sustaining Creator. With two failed marriages and four small sons she sets out on an incredible journey. In Through It All she shares the timeless truths which inspire any person who has ever wondered 'how am I going to make it?'

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493199334

Book preview

cover.jpg

Copyright © 2014 by Mary Snow Roach.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014914879

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4931-9935-8

                 Softcover      978-1-4931-9937-2

                 eBook         978-1-4931-9933-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 09/02/2014

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

616250

CONTENTS

PART I—SEEDS OF PROVISION

Rising Star

Stamford To Merced

From Spilled Ink To The Streets Of San Francisco

Music Lessons

Senior Dreams, Senior Rings

Homage

Jeff To The Rescue

Continuation

Let’s Decorate!

Home Alone

Home On The Range

Close Calls

Chasing Dreams

Mule Who?

PART II WALKING THE WALK

Dallas, Here We Come

Ashes To Ashes

The Rise Of The Phoenix

Crossing Over

Spiritual Giants

Up Up This Is The Day!

Mary Is Honored

It’s A Chili Dog Day

Decorate Your Life With Love

Abundant Living

Celebration

Fresh Start

Left Behind

Perseverance

Houston We Have A Problem

Struggles Strengthen

PART III SOARING LIKE AN EAGLE

Out But Not Down

Burning Rubber

Dreams Do Come True

PART IV—TAKING A STROLL

Our Mary, My Boys

Looking Back By Cindy Harper

"Life is no brief candle to me; it is sort of a

splendid TORCH which I have got hold of

for the moment and I want to make it burn

as brightly as possible before handing it on

to further generations."

Mary C. Crowley

This book is lovingly dedicated to my four boys

and their families. I am deeply grateful

to my husband for encouraging me. I thank my

friend and co-author, Cindy Harper, for inspiring

me to keep the torch burning high!

Mary Snow Roach

My dear Mary—I’ve just read thru your book the second time—it was better than the first! Your story is quite amazing. To know all you’ve been through and now to know you are happy, fulfilled and married to a wonderful man to love you and take care of you. It makes my heart SING! What a great accomplishment—raising 4 very special boys—I should say Men!

Many memories came flooding back as I read the heartaches and the triumphs. How very grateful I have always been to have ‘the Mary C. influence’ in my life and to have counted you as a precious friend and inspiration. Mary C. lit a torch in each of us who were privileged to know her and love her. I thank God for the lessons she taught along the way that still shape our lives and those of our children and grandchildren.

May God continue to bless you everyday—I’ll look forward to receiving a completed copy of your story.

Much Love always, Barbara Mc.

Prologue

I first saw the woman who would change my life at a convention in Fresno, California in 1965.

When ‘Mary C’ took the stage that day, her audience of seventy five to one hundred women greeted her with enthusiastic cheers followed by a rapt silence as she began to speak. That Texas woman with big hair and an even bigger heart was so sincere, so energizing, smart, funny, and so dead-on real, I couldn’t get enough of her.

I remember thinking, if I could have one wish, it would be to walk that walk with her.

I was just 21, married, and already the mother of two little sons named Scott and Mark. How could a struggling young California mother in a shaky marriage ever hope to move into the orbit of one like Mary Crowley, the rising star of Dallas, founding owner of the phenomenally successful Home Interiors and Gifts Corporation? At the time, it seemed just as likely as growing orchids in Death Valley.

Even now it seems incredible, but God heard my wish that day.

My path would take many twists and turns in the years that followed, but one day I would arrive in Dallas, financially devastated and homeless, raising my sons alone. I would go see Mary C, and report brokenly, I gave it all, Mary. I have nothing.

Mary’s response was, Honey, come in this house. You have more than you know. Your God is a great God.

I went to Mary’s mansion on Inwood Road hoping for a job opportunity with the Home Interiors headquarters in Dallas. A short while later, I left with a check in hand and Mary’s instructions, Now you go put a roof over your boys’ heads and get to work.

No she did not offer a job with the company staff, but instructed me to get busy holding shows and recruiting ladies to build my own unit again. The check wasn’t a gift or a loan from Mary, but my own money, enough to purchase a nice home for the boys and me. It was beyond anything I could have ever imagined.

Over the years I heard Mary say many times, Always remember we serve a big God. God showed up huge in my life that day, and in the lives of my sons. I walked into that house a shattered woman, and I left knowing that we had received a miracle. That’s how it was with Mary; she could always turn things around, build people up, and give God the glory.

That day was a quantum leap toward the walk alongside Mary C that I had wished and prayed for so many years before, a journey which would forever change all our lives.

This is the story of our Mary.

PART I—SEEDS OF PROVISION

Rising Star

Mary Carter Crowley’s star had begun to rise many years earlier, in the small North Texas town of Sherman, just 65 miles north of Dallas. Her mother died when she was a year and a half old. She lived for a time with her grandparents. They were dear, good, godly people who lived on a farm in Missouri. They helped establish a faith rooted in church attendance and prayer before meals.

At an early age of six and a half, Mary’s father remarried and moved to Portland, Oregon. Mary and her sister were picked up rather unceremoniously across the country and dropped into a hostile atmosphere, because they had acquired what some would describe as a difficult stepmother. She was a woman who didn’t like children and didn’t want to learn about them. The next seven years were tough ones.

Mary came to rely on her faith to see her through times of loneliness, loss, and pain. Mary would walk out in the beautiful piney woods of the Pacific Northwest and talk to Jesus as if he were her friend because he was. Sometimes he was the only friend she had. Her grandparents had taught her that Jesus loved her because the Bible told her so.

Those difficult years were not just childhood imagination because the courts eventually took Mary and her sister away from her stepmother. At the age of thirteen Mary and her sister returned to their grandparents.

When Mary came of age during the Great Depression she was well acquainted with hard times and the personal sacrifices families had to make just to get by and stay together.

In spite of the harsh economic climate, Mary had a strong spirit and a positive attitude. One of her greatest traits was her love of people. She had no way of knowing it yet, but she was a natural born promoter.

Years later, in an interview on the 700 Club television show, she would recall her start in sales. Already the mother of two youngsters making her way alone in the world during the Great Depression, Mary Carter needed to find a job. As she was later fond of saying, It isn’t a disgrace to be poor, but it is terribly inconvenient.

Mary studied the few shops in downtown Sherman, and chose the one with the best window displays and approached the owner for employment. He almost laughed at her, and informed her that there was a Depression, and no one was hiring. He was doing his best just to maintain his existing staff.

Undaunted, Mary made him a proposition. If he would let her come to work on Saturday, he wouldn’t have to pay her unless she had increased his sales by enough to cover her daily wage of $1.25. Mary reported with relish how she greeted each customer at the door, how excited she was to welcome them to the store and help them with their needs. The other clerks knew there was no business to be had and were not impressed with Mary’s enthusiasm.

When a very tired looking older woman wearing soiled clothes, worn shoes, and a knapsack over her shoulder came into the store, along with seven children, the other clerks didn’t bother to even look up, but Mary greeted her joyfully. After much time helping her select new school clothes for all seven children, Mary had the highest sale of the day. That woman had just sold her picked cotton and had enough money to pay for her children’s clothes and something nice for herself.

The fact that Mary knew nothing about the merchandise was unimportant. Even then, one of her guiding philosophies was people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. By the end of that remarkable Saturday, Mary had a job.

Mary always knew that if she was to be the sole provider for her family, she needed to further her education. She received a $100 scholarship from the Sherman Rotary Club and enrolled in Business College in Dallas, where she studied accounting. Eventually Mary and her children, Don and Ruth, moved to Dallas where she found employment as an accountant and met her future husband, Dave Crowley.

While a competent accountant, Mary soon realized her true calling was sales. She worked for a time at a direct sales company, and began to formulate a dream of starting her own firm. She found a valuable mentor at her home church, First Baptist in Dallas. A young attorney named Ralph Baker, who served as Sunday School Superintendent, became her sounding board.

Mary wanted to form a company based on Christian principles, a company which would honor God and bless and serve others. As she would later describe it, she wanted a company where women could develop their genius during the day, and still be at home when the kids got in from school.

Mary’s idea was to sell coordinating home décor items through home decorating shows and catalogues. It was to be a women-helping-women enterprise, teaching a new generation of homemakers to decorate their homes tastefully and inexpensively, a little at a time, as their budgets permitted.

With legal assistance from Ralph Baker, and a source of merchandise from Dallas importer Horace Ardinger, by December of 1957, the Home Interiors and Gifts Corporation was born in Mary Carter Crowley’s Dallas garage. Her first two employees were her son Don, and daughter Ruth.

Of course the capital needs of an expanding new business quickly outstripped the resources of its struggling owner. Years later Mary recalled going to visit one of the largest banks in Dallas, Mercantile National Bank, and telling loan officer R.L. Thornton that three of his competitors had already turned her down, and if he did also, her business would be forced to close that same day. Mr. Thornton became intrigued by Mary’s spirit and her business knowledge. He discovered that she had her own capital at risk in the venture, and quickly became convinced of both her character and her capacity; the three C’s of credit for old-school bankers.

It was no doubt one of the highlights of R.L. Thornton’s stellar banking career, and he was delighted to recall over the years that his bank had the vision three others lacked, and his $6,000 loan enabled the survival of what would eventually grow to be a mega corporation with annual sales of $570 million dollars.

Whenever Mary recalled that watershed day in 1958, she was fond of saying with a glint in her eye, We worship a big God; don’t ever be afraid to ask him for miracles.

Mary C had her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, two healthy children, the vision for a Christian company, a garage full of inventory, and a nation full of women eager to duplicate the kinds of homes they could now see on television. In her hand she held a $6,000 check from Mercantile Bank. She was on