[1] The daughter of Canadian parents,[2] she was born Mary Alice Dawe Hunter in Alton, Illinois and was educated at Trinity College at the University of Toronto.
[1] She was a reporter for Marketing from 1955 to 1956; from 1956 to 1957, she was an editorial assistant for the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Downie was publicity manager for the Oxford University Press in Toronto from 1958 to 1959.
[2] From 1973 to 1979, Downie was book review editor for the Kingston Whig-Standard.
[1] She has also contributed to The Horn Book Magazine, OWL, Chickadee, The Globe and Mail, the Ottawa Citizen and the Montreal Gazette.