Mary Carol Flake was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the eldest of seven children, and was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio.
[1] She earned a bachelor's degree in textiles and marketing from Louisiana State University, where she met Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé.
As First Lady, Mary Flake de Flores was Honorary President of the Honduran Institute of Childhood and Family, participated in the Ninth Conference of Spouses of Heads of State and Government of the Americas,[2] and participated in the summit of first ladies of Central America and the Inter-American Development Bank, to promote support for rural women.
[2] She was Honorary President of the 1999 Special Olympics and keynote speaker at the 1999 National Congress for Women in Mexico City.
[1] As founder and president of the non-profit Fundación María, she has organized and funded a new pediatric specialty hospital in Tegucigalpa, which began construction in 2000.