A Story Not to Be Forgotten, Writer Mary Adele Cluck

Growing up in an Italian family is growing up in a vibrant family with lots of personality!  It makes for an interesting cast of characters and perhaps that had something to do with Mary Adele’s initial love of using her imagination and reading at a young age as a means of escape. 

Buffalo was not a prosperous place to grow up either, more of a city of hard-working folks with just enough income to put food on the table. Her parents insisted her, the oldest and her two younger brothers attend Catholic schools.  Those in that parts of NY were some of the traditional hard-nose typed type you read of where the nuns could be cruel and the rules rough on children.  

I found it fascinating getting to know Mary Adele Cluck given her background as both

an Italian and a New Yorker; we had that in common and both landing up in Florida. Her life is an adventure down a path with so many twists and turns where she always seemed to come out a bigger better person.  Life hasn’t always been easy for her but she weathered through all the storms.

Mary Adele credits part of her winning attitude to her role model, her mother.  This parent was a beacon of light believing in all her choices and wanting to share in her daughter’s life struggles in any way she could.  Her mom took time and effort to be an active part of her life when some parents pushed their kids away. This instilled a sense of worth and value in her. 

As Mary transitioned her career from as varied positions as medical assistant, working for the railroad, to Wesley Chamber Executive Director, and many others, she developed skill sets along the way, moving the compilation forward to each subsequent role making her more successful at each.  Mary Adele left her mark where ever she was at. She also managed, in the middle of all these transition to volunteer and serve 13 years in the Army Reserve! 

Nothing has ever held Mary Adele back from pursuing her dreams.  Education was one she placed a high premium on and was unrelenting on wanting to obtain. So no one who knew her was surprised at 42 years old when she went to college and pursued her Bachelor’s Degree. And then at 50, she set out and received her Master’s making her even more marketable. She proceeded to teach as an adjunct professor in marketing.

With her love of education, Mary Adele was caught up in reading and combined with her imagination; early writing was a natural outgrowth for her. Having stories published by Reader’s Digest and Teen Digest showed her that she had the ability, at a young age, to appeal to readers. 

At the back of her mind, always was the ideal of writing and printing a book. 

With the encouragement of her husband Ed Cluck, she tapped 

into her passion for children and contemplated more seriously pursuing her life goal.  Her and Ed had just finished sponsoring 13 exchange students over several years in their home from many countries. With the end of the program, she had the time to balance work and write again. And so it began.....  

Her drive for children’s books came strongly from her ability, as she puts it “to tap into a child’s feelings of being lonely and not having friends and being different.”  So many children experience this and it leads to such feelings of isolation. This seemed like a very healthy way to address it, fun and creative.

Mary Adele always wanted to be someone different and leave a legacy behind.  In writing, she knew this was a way to be remembered and impact one of our most precious resources in life, our children, the makings of our future.  As she described, “Too many children don’t get the opportunity to simply be children these days. To take a child into a different sort of reality with a twist would be memorable and perhaps leave a lasting impression.  I can do something about this through my writing.”

In reading her book, Princess Alana and her Magic Kingdom sold on Amazon, she accomplishes this quite well. Her character comes alive to heal the loneliness of a child. In the process, it lets the reader realize we can and should be allowed to escape with our minds from the madness of the world.  To daydream is healthy.

Parents and grandparents need stories like this to reinforce the importance of being creative in thought, and taking vacations with our imagination. Also it reinforces the value of friendships free of drama where there is no judging, being helpful and not being

hurtful. This story-line shows the heart of Mary Adele which is certainly to be remembered for a long long time. This indeed is exactly what Mary Adele Cluck set out to do and has accomplished! With more books on the horizon, her dream and Alana, also the name of her niece, will live on for years to come. 

Click here to order Princess Alana and The Magic Kingdom