Mountain Movers: Mary Fletcher
Elevating those in our community who moved mountains in their lives so they can help others move mountains in theirs.
On a beautiful fall day in October, I sat with Mary Fletcher, 36, to discuss her life's journey. We were seated upstairs in the photography studio of the Mother Jones Center for Resilient Community.
Sunlight filled the room. It was bright and cheerful, much like Mary herself. Dressed in fashionable business attire, most would find it difficult to believe that Mary was once homeless and addicted to hard street drugs.
She grew up in Bellaire, Ohio, her father out of the picture and her mother “a real bad drinker.” When she was 15-years-old, Mary was charged with truancy and was taken from her mother by Child Protective Services (CPS). They placed her in the Helinski Shelter on Wheeling Island, which is a co-ed children’s shelter for children ages 8 to 17. Still aged 15, she was approved for independent housing and began living on her own.
She maintained a somewhat stable life and by 2005, she was a proud mother of two children. However, her partner began a downward spiral, and her and her kids were pulled down in it. They lost their house in 2014 and found themselves homeless and temporarily living at the Salvation Army shelter. Bouncing from the Homeless Coalition’s housing to North Park apartments, they lost their home as quickly as they found it. Homeless once again, she knew CPS would be entering the picture soon. Much like her mother, she lost her children in 2015. Through teary eyes she said, “Once this happened, I felt like I lost my soul.”
The pain of this loss led her to substance use. “Once they took the kids from me, that's when I ended up doing heavy drugs, which was crack. Then I got caught selling to a Confidential Informant and went to prison for it.” During Mary’s time in prison, a reliable mother in the community stepped in to take temporary custody of her children. Mary was lucky enough to hand-pick this figure.
Going to prison on drug charges and not being there to watch her sons grow up was her wake up call. “I was like, I'm done. I'm ready to get my life together. I have two kids that need me,” she said. Mary may have felt as if she lost her soul, but this only pushed her further toward recovery. After her time in prison, Mary was accepted into the Mary and Martha House in June 2019. This East Wheeling-based halfway house makes it their mission to create a safe haven for women who are actively working toward their recovery and betterment of their lives.
After living comfortably at the Mary and Martha House for nearly 15 months, Mary bravely decided the time had come for her to try her hand at complete independence. “Going to the Mary Martha House and learning to be independent and keep a job, it made me feel so good. I felt like a human being again,” she said with a smile.
As if for many people in recovery, once she hit her low point, she was able to reckon with her internal demons. “Acknowledging I had a problem, admitting to myself I had a problem, because I didn't think I had a problem. But I did and it was bigger than I thought. I had to ask for help.”
She now partakes in frequent visits to see her children and has kept a job at The McLure Hotel for over eight months. Mary is a success story, and she will soon use that success to embark on a new chapter as a student at West Virginia Northern Community College where she plans to study to become a Substance Abuse Intervention Technician. This program prepares its students to obtain jobs in fields such as social work, mental health, and substance abuse. This will allow her to be in a position to help those that she wants to reach.“I try to tell my story when I can. I work at the Winter Freeze shelter and help the homeless there. I love to communicate that I've experienced what they're going through. I try to send them in the right direction,” Mary said. “People gave to me. I want to be able to give that back to someone else.”