After Mary's death in June 1944, her papers stayed with the Pethick-Lawrences. On their death they moved, along with many of the Pethick-Lawrence papers, to the home of Esther Knowles. Esther had joined the Espérance Club at the age of 2 in the mid 90s and worked with the Pethick-Lawrences her life long. On her death in 1974 the papers passed into the hands of her niece Nita Needham who passed them to Lucy Neal in 1993. During these years a number of attempts were made to write Mary's story (See Attempts to Tell Story). The most successful of these was Mary Neal and The Espérance Morris written by Roy Judge in The Folk Music Journal in 1989 Vol. 5. Number 5. Roy spent several years researching for the article.