Mary Alice Benedict Grindol began genealogical research about 1978, first publishing in 1981, The Grindol Family Genealogy about her husband’s relatives. In 1988, with her father’s autobiography, she published The Descendants of Virgil Merrill Benedict and Lottie Mae Fuller.
For ten years Mary was the newsletter editor of The Kalamazoo Valley Heritage for the Kalamazoo Valley Genealogical Society (Kalamazoo County, Michigan). For five years she was the editor of The Benedict Family History News, a national publication. Both newsletters were recognized for excellence by the National Genealogical Society (NGS). In 1995, Mary won NGS’s Family History Writing Contest with an article about her Cowlin/ Cowling relatives on her father’s side of the family. Mary also edited and published from 1995 to 1998 The Fuller-Button Family Newsletter, precursor to this compilation. The newsletter detailed some of the in-process research.
Mary is a member of the National Genealogical Society, the New England Historic Genealogical Society, The Central Illinois Genealogical Society, the Descendants of Ancient Windsor, Descendants of Early Quakers, and the Kalamazoo Valley Genealogical Society. She graduated in 1954 from Central High School, Battle Creek, Michigan; in 1958 earned a Diploma in Nursing from Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit; in 1963 a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, University of Maryland, Baltimore; and in 1981 Master of Arts, Educational Leadership, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo. She was a registered nurse for 36 years and worked in public health, staff and patient education, and in psychiatric nursing. She retired in 1998.
Although Mary had researched her Fuller-Button ancestors since about 1983, after retirement she began in earnest to gather as much on her Fuller-Button cousins as possible. As part of that goal, she established a website at RootsWeb’s WorldConnect on the Fuller-Button-Mansfield families at <http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/~marygrindol> . Only information on deceased relatives is online. This printed volume includes all known descendants of George William and Charity (Mansfield) Fuller and of James (or Ambrose) and Joanna (Thompson) Button. The website includes however, ancestors, possible ancestors, and known cousins in the many branches of the Mansfield and other ancestral families.