Mary Jo ClarkDuring the Great Depression, Mary Jo Clark left school, lied about her age and her name, and went to work at age fifteen to help support her family. She spent years working in the mail order business, first at Sears and then at Spiegel’s, while finising high school at night. She met her future husband in an English Literature class. They married during World War II while the groom was on a furlough from the Army. Eventually Mary Jo followed her husband to an air base in Florida. This is where their first child was born. They returned to Chicago after the war and seven more children followed. Her West Side Stories, written with her son Jack, appeared in the Chicago Reader beginning in 1995. In 2002 the stories were collected in the book “On the Home Front.” She died at home in 2004, surrounded by her children. Read More Read Less