Leslie Storrier Chavez, of Torrance, CA, never remembers seeing any early photos of her parents while she was growing on Raphael Avenue in Mattydale. There was a colorized family portrait on the wall over the TV and the occasional vacation photo but nothing personal of mom and dad. “Their wedding photo?” she said. “Not in my memory.” This was common for many of the “silent generation” of the World War II years. Later, when Chavez, the family’s unofficial family historian, started putting together a family tree, she realized her mother had stashed away photos of her and her husband in meticulously kept photo albums which she kept hidden from prying eyes. But there was something missing from her collection, though. Where was Mary and Bob Storrier’s wedding announcement from their hometown newspaper? Chavez was shocked when she and her husband, Joey, discovered that announcement buried in a box beneath a vendor’s table at a Torrance antique street fair in 2018, some 76 years after it was published on Nov. 9, 1942, and more than 3,000 miles away from Syracuse. “It was unbelievable,” Chavez said. “I was overwhelmed. I found something with a billion-to-one chance.” The odds were probably greater than that. Consider she moved from Central New York to California in 1976, married Joey, a man who since childhood loved diving into old boxes at flea markets and antique shows, bought a 1926 Craftsman Bungalow together which they have been restoring for 11 years, which needed vintage light fixtures and hardware, which brought them to the street fair and then, finally, to a box of newspapers marked “Syracuse Post-Standard.” The vendor gave them the box of papers for free, saying, “You are from Syracuse, you deserve them.” They had no idea what years the newspapers were from. Leslie and Joey went through the thick stack a little each day, noting the prices of groceries and checking out fashions of the day. He kept a close eye on people and places which Leslie might remember from her childhood. Then, unexpectedly, Joey saw a photo of Leslie’s mother. “That’s your mom!” he shouted. Chavez was ecstatic and emotional. She had found, completely out of the blue, what she considers to be the “centerpiece” of her family’s story. “It was so huge,” she said. She called her mom and told her what she found. Her mom, now 101 years old and living in a retirement home in Baldwinsville, was shocked by the discovery. “I was floored. It was a total surprise,” she told Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard last month. “I did not even know it was in the paper!” Mary Storrier was equally surprised when she found out a reporter was interested in writing about her today. “Why would anybody want to write about me?” she asked. The reporter said her seven children had a lot of wonderful stories to tell about her. “Don’t believe everything they say,” she joked, before adding, “That will be fine with me, just make it worth my while. I may find out a few things.” Mary Sullivan was born on Sept. 19, 1923 in Syracuse. “She had a tough start in life,” Leslie Chavez said, “losing her brother and mother when she was young.” She grew up on Merriman Avenue and her future husband, Bob Storrier, lived on Seymour Street, a couple of blocks away. “In high school, they would travel back and forth, cutting through their neighbor’s yards to meet up,” her daughter said. Mary Sullivan was the valedictorian of her high school class at St. Lucy’s. One night at a party, Bob asked Mary’s date if he could kiss her before he left for work. His friend foolishly agreed. Big mistake. “And that was all she wrote,” Chavez said. “Mary was smitten, and Bob was too.” World War II was in full swing when the couple was married on Oct. 2, 1942. Bob was a Marine, and like many couples during the war, they married early rather than take their chances and wait until peace returned. The wedding took place at St. Lucy’s Church. The bride wore moss green crepe with a matching hat and Johanna Hill roses. While he was stationed in North Carolina, she sent her new husband a photo of her holding baby booties indicating she was pregnant with the first of their seven children, a daughter, Lynn. Bob was sent to Guam and worked in supplying the Army and packing parachutes. Mary contributed to the war effort, working at Halcomb Steel in Solvay. After the war, the family had six more children and settled in Mattydale. Bob worked at Salerno Biscuit Company. Mary worked at Fox’s Department store from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and was a full-time mom the rest of the day. “I don’t know how she did it, raising seven children in 11 years,” Chavez said. “She was a fabulous mother and always took a back seat so her family could shine.” Mary made breakfasts and lunches each school day, and Chavez still remembers her mom’s “peanut butter and jelly operation.” “She laid out the bread and remembered who liked just peanut butter, or who liked sandwiches cut corner to corner.” Then there were the life lessons taught. “Mom taught us to follow through and never give up,” said daughter Lori Storrier Green. “I was a teenager and begged to join an after-school basketball team. After a few weeks, I realized I was not very good, but mom insisted I stick with it and not allow me to quit the team. I never got very good at playing basketball, but I learned a valuable lesson.” When her sons Robert’s and Gary’s paper routes were snow and ice packed and their bicycles and wagons were useless, it was “mom to the rescue.” “Every Sunday morning, she would wake brother Gary and me (reluctantly, I might add) at 5:30 to deliver those papers. When we returned at 7, Gary and I would scurry back to bed, satisfied with the job we had done. Meanwhile, Mom’s everyday job had just begun, another day with seven mouths to feed. This went on for two-and-a-half years.” Mary took it all in stride, including her daughter Lee’s three-day trip to the original Woodstock in 1969, and her three sons’ self-described “good bad, but not evil” behavior, which “kept Mom up worrying on many nights.” And there was the time that daughter Lynn brought a member of the New York State Fair amusement ride crew home for a night because they needed a place to stay. Daughter Lucille calls her the “gold standard of moms” and Believes that all “seven of us Storriers were taught love by the best of the best.” They all mention that got their independence from her, along with “grit and gentleness.” Robert believes a book should be written about his mom. This article will have to do for now because her story is not yet finished. Mary Storrier will turn 102 in September and is just as tough as ever. On the day she spoke with this reporter, she had her bookie over so she could make her Masters golf wager. And she loves watching the New York Yankees especially slugger Aaron Judge. “Can he hit that ball?” she asks. Asked how to credit her long life, her answer is quick. “Whiskey, no ice,” she said. “It spoils it.” That and family. “My kids are something else,” she said. “They are quite a bunch.” This feature is a part of CNY Nostalgia, a section on syracuse.com. Send your ideas and curiosities to Johnathan Croyle at jcroyle@syracuse.com or call 315-416-3882.