Mary Ann Harris Gay
Mary Ann Harris Gay (March 18, 1829 – November 21, 1918) was an American writer and poet from Decatur, Georgia, known for her Civil War memoir Life in Dixie During the War (1897). This described events in Atlanta during the war. Author Margaret Mitchell said this memoir inspired some of her passages in her novel Gone with the Wind (1936). Gay also published a book of poetry (1858), which she republished after the war to raise money to help support her mother and sister. She also was active in the work to preserve Confederate battlefields and helped raise money to construct monuments and cemeteries. Gay raised thousands of dollars in Texas to pay for a fence and gate at the newly established McGavock Confederate Cemetery in 1866 in Franklin, Tennessee. Her brother was among the nearly 2,000 Confederates reinterred there from temporary battlefield graves. In 1997 Gay was named a Georgia Woman of Achievement. Her home during and after the Civil War, the Mary Gay House, has been preserved in downtown Decatur. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Biography Mary Ann Gay was born to William and Mary (Stevens) Gay on March 18, 1829, in Jones