You can begin to play the video by clicking on the triangle play image sitting in the middle of the video player on this page. If you do not see a video player on this page, you may not have Flash installed on your computer.
At the age of ten, the Shadd's moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania where Mary attended a Quaker School for the next six years. This experience influence dMary later in life, whereby she returned to this location and opened a school for Black children in 1840.
Mary Ann Ball was born on July 19, 1817 in Knox County, Ohio to Hiram and Annie Rodgers Ball. She attended Oberlin College in Ohio. She married Robert Bickerdyke in 1847, who died in 1859 just two years before the Civil War. Together, the Bickerdykes had two sons.