Mary Dean (Brown) Canady was born on December 31, 1939, in New Brockton, Alabama, to the late Lorene Griffin, a housewife, and James Brown, a farmer. Her family loved to sing and discovered as a young child that Mary had a special voice. When visitors came to the house, Mary’s parents would have her stop playing to come sing for their guests, not knowing that she would go on to bless many with her beautiful voice.

 

When Mary was five years old, her mother passed, and she began living with her loving grandparents, Mary Francis “Milk Mama” Griffin Pruitt and Albert “Boot” Pruitt. They would have her walk several miles each morning to deliver food to neighbors before going to school, not knowing that she would go on to bless many with her hospitality.

 

At the age of thirteen, Mary Dean was saved at a tent revival in New Brockton, Alabama, under the late Elder Giles, and began her journey of devotion to God and the church.

 

Mary graduated from New Brockton Colored High School in New Brockton, Alabama, in 1957. At this time the late Bishop Willie W. Mathews asked her grandparents if she could join the Church of God by Faith and sing for him at churches and other events. Mary and two other young ladies became known as the Soulsters, accompanying Bishop Matthews as he preached from city to city, not knowing that she would go on to bless many as a lead singer with songs like, “I Learned How to Lean and Depend on Jesus”.

 

Later, Bishop Mathews identified William James Canady as the one that God would have Mary to wed. On Sunday, December 29, 1963, Mary married her soul mate and better half in the auditorium of New Brockton Colored High School in New Brockton, Alabama. They chose Elder Daniel E. Gainey to be the Best Man and Mrs. Evelyn Blackman to be the Matron of Honor, as Bishop Willie Mathews officiated their wedding, not knowing that she would go on to be a crown to her husband as his helpmate.