Mary Brewster & her husband William married in 1592 & had their first son Jonathan in Scrooby a year later. She next had a daughter Patience, born about 1600 or somewhat earlier.
About 1606, the church congregation began more formally meeting at the Scrooby manor, where she & husband William resided. About this time, pressure from the English authorities was mounting, & the meetings became more & more secretive. She gave birth to another daughter at this time, which they named Fear.
The couple fled just over a year later for Holland with the other members of the congregation, & in Leiden they buried an unnamed child: presumably one that had died in infancy. In 1611, she gave birth to a son they named Love, & two or three years later gave birth to their last son, whom they named Wrestling.
William became the senior elder of the American colony. He was an advisor to Governor William Bradford. She was one of only five adult women from the Mayflower to survive the first winter in the New World, & one of only four such to survive to the "first Thanksgiving" in 1621, which she helped cook.
As such, she is included in Plimoth Plantation's re-enactment of that Thanksgiving. She is thought to have had six children with William - Jonathan, Patience, Fear, Love, an unnamed child who died young, & Wrestling. The two youngest journeyed with their parents on Mayflower, while the three elder children joined their family on later ships. Her son, Jonathan Brewster (1593-1659) & his wife Lucretia Oldham, had nine children. One of those children was also named Mary Brewster. Her life in England is fairly untraceable in the British records, as is her maiden name.
