Israel Antin emigrated to Boston in 1891, and three years later he sent for Mary and her mother and siblings.

Antin is best known for her 1912 autobiography The Promised Land, which describes her public school education and assimilation into American culture, as well as life for Jews in Czarist Russia.

During World War I, while she campaigned for the Allied cause, her husband's pro-German activities precipitated their separation and her physical breakdown.

Amadeus was forced to leave his post at Columbia University to work in China, where he became "the father of Chinese geology."

During World War II, Amadeus was interned by the Japanese and died shortly after his release in 1946.