Mary T. Palmer

Summary

Mary T. Gillespie, a daughter of Jewell and Rita Gillespie, pitched the Beachcomber Last Calls to a win in a 1973 women’s softball game and stood as bridesmaid at three of her brothers’ weddings in the late 1960s and 1970s. She later married Edward Palmer and remained on Beaver Island.

History

Gillespie was “sister of the groom” and a bridesmaid at brother John Wayne Gillespie’s wedding to Jeanne Marie Wojan in November 1967.¹ On 12 August 1973 she pitched the Beachcomber Last Calls to a 6–5 win over Chuck’s Marathon in the Beacon’s women’s softball coverage.² In 1975 she was again a bridesmaid, “sister of the bridegroom,” at the weddings of brothers Daniel Gillespie to Patricia Cross in July and Robert Jewell Gillespie to Carol Lee Gatliff in November.³

Gillespie later married Edward Palmer. A January 1978 Beacon birth notice announces a daughter, Tara Marie, born 7 December 1977 to “Mr. and Mrs. Edward Palmer,” with Jewell Gillespie and Lorraine Palmer as grandparents,⁴ and a January 1989 notice for a second daughter, Rita Jewell — born 23 December 1988 and named for both grandmothers — identifies the parents directly as “Mary and Edward Palmer of Beaver Island.”⁵ Jewell Gillespie’s December 1995 obituary lists “Mary T. Palmer and her husband Edward, of Beaver Island,” among his surviving children.⁶

Significance

Gillespie’s record — an active role in island women’s softball and a recurring presence in her brothers’ weddings — is documented almost entirely through family and community notices rather than any office or business, a pattern typical of the Beacon’s coverage of women in this period. Her later married name, Palmer, links two Beaver Island families whose members also carried the Gillespie musical tradition forward, as her husband Edward Palmer did alongside brother Daniel.

Sources

See also the full sources: block above.

Added 1 August 2026 · revised 4 August 2026. Recent changes