Mary Sampson Patterson Leary Langston (born Mary Sampson Patterson; c. 1835 – 1915) was an American abolitionist, the first African-American woman to attend Oberlin College, and wife of notable abolitionists Lewis Sheridan Leary and Charles Henry Langston.
[3][7] Patterson married fellow Fayetteville-native Lewis Sheridan Leary,[8][9] a fugitive slave and abolitionist, on May 12, 1858.
[12][13][14] According to Hughes, a friend returned Leary's shawl to Mary and was treasured throughout the rest of her life, though this story may be apocryphal.
[18] She temporarily lived with her parents,[4] and abolitionists Wendell Phillips and James Redpath aided Leary in raising her daughter.
Over the next several years, Leary unsuccessfully attempted to obtain a job teaching freed slaves, and was offered and turned down the opportunity to emigrate to Haiti as an honored guest.
[19] On January 18, 1869, Mary married one of Lewis's friends and fellow abolitionist Charles Henry Langston.
[22] The couple bought a house near Kansas University, where they opened a grocery store and raised a foster son, Desalines Langston.
Carrie and Langston returned to Kansas to live with Mary, as Hughes moved to Mexico to work as confidential secretary for the general manager of the Pullman Company.
In order to pay their mortgage, Mary would rent their home to college students, and she and Langston moved in with the Reeds.
Summer nights on the front porch Aunt Sue cuddles a brown-faced child to her bosom And tells him stories.