Mary Travers
Mary Allin Travers (November 9, 1936 – September 16, 2009) was an American singer-songwriter who was known for being in the famous 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, along with Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey.[2] Travers grew up amid the burgeoning folk scene in New York City's Greenwich Village,[2] and she released five solo albums. She sang in the contralto range.[3]
For other uses, see Mary Travers (disambiguation).
Mary Travers
September 16, 2009 (aged 72)
Singer-songwriter
1961–2009
2
Virginia Coigney (mother)
Vocals
Early life and education[edit]
Mary Travers was born in 1936 in Louisville, Kentucky, to Robert Travers and Virginia Coigney, journalists and active organizers of The Newspaper Guild, a trade union.[4] In 1938, the family moved to Greenwich Village in New York City.
Mary attended the progressive Little Red School House, where she met musical icons like Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson. Robeson sang her lullabies. Travers left school in the 11th grade to become a member of the Song Swappers folk group.[4]
Personal life[edit]
Travers was married four times. Her first brief union, to John Filler, produced her older daughter, Erika, in 1960. In 1963, she married Barry Feinstein, a prominent freelance photographer of musicians and celebrities. Her younger daughter, Alicia, was born in 1966, and the couple divorced the following year. In the 1970s, she was married to Gerald Taylor, publisher of National Lampoon. After the end of her marriage to Taylor, Travers had a relationship with lawyer Richard Ben-Veniste for several years while raising her daughters in New York. In 1991 she married restaurateur Ethan Robbins and lived with him in the small town of Redding, Connecticut for the remainder of her life.[2][9]
Illness and death[edit]
In 2004, Travers was diagnosed with leukemia.[10] A bone marrow transplant in 2005 induced a temporary remission, but she died on September 16, 2009, at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut, from complications related to the marrow transplant and other treatments.[2]