Background
Mary O'Hara Alsop was born July 10, 1885 in Cape May Point, New Jersey, the third child of Reverend Dr. Reese Fell Alsop and Mary Lee Spring. O'Hara, who was named after her maternal grandmother, Mary O'Hara Spring (née Denny), grew up in Brooklyn Heights, New York. She was a descendant of William Penn.
She married her third cousin, Kent Kane Parrot, in 1905 against her father's wishes.
Career
Her siblings included an older sister, the writer Gulielma ("Elma") Fell. An older brother, Reese. And a younger sister, Elizabeth ("Bess").
Her screenwriting credits included the movies The Last Card (1921), The Prisoner of Zenda (1922), Braveheart (1925), and Framed (1927). In 1930 the couple bought a ranch which had been established in 1886 in Laramie County, between Laramie and Cheyenne. They renamed it Remount Ranch, and stocked the ranch with sheep, which were at that time a profitable endeavor.
To make ends meet, they eked out a living delivering milk in Cheyenne and breeding horses. Subsequently, O'Hara ran a summer camp for boys on holiday from Eastern prep schools. Yet it was her typewriter, not livestock, that proved most profitable for O'Hara.
With the rugged Remount as a backdrop, she began writing Wyoming ranch stories. Her best-known and loved works were written at this time: , , and. She composed a folk musical, "The Catch Colt," which was performed in 1961 at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and at the Lincoln Theatre in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
The musical was published in 1964. Two years later, O'Hara published her account of writing, composing and producing the musical, "A Musical in the Making." Her other piano compositions included "Esperan" (1943), "Green Grass of Wyoming" (1946), "May God Keep You" (1946), and "Wind Harp" (1954). In 1968, she moved to Chevy Chase, Maryland, where she lived until her death on October 14, 1980 at the age of 95 of arteriosclerosis.