A noted scholar, she compiled and edited a major reference work on folklore and was the author or editor of thirteen books for adults, young people, and children.
Born in Barrington, in Shelburne County, he was a descendant of the venerable family called Doane (an Anglicized form of a Gaelic name common in southern Ireland since the 1500s).
In the late 1870s or early 1880s, Benjamin Doane and his wife Mary, a native of South Carolina and an unreconstructed Rebel, moved to New York and established a home in Manhattan, where they lived for some years and raised their children.
His fascination with the oral tradition of medieval folk tales was shared by Alice-Mary, who by then was known as Maria (pronounced "Ma-RYE-uh" in the British fashion), which she had adopted as a pen name.
After MacEdward Leach earned a bachelor's degree in 1916 and completed his military service in World War I, he and Maria married in 1917 and moved to Baltimore, where both of them pursued graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University.
As working parents, the Leaches then set up house in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and some years later, once their son was away at boarding school, decided to follow mostly independent pathways.