Mayo was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of newspaper reporter Luke and his wife, Martha Henrietta (née Rautenstrauch) Jones. Her family had roots back to the earliest days of St Louis, including gr… See more

Mayo wed Michael O'Shea in 1947, and they remained married until he died in 1973. The couple had one child, Mary Catherine O'Shea (born in 1953). For several decades, the family lived in Thousand Oaks, California… See more

Mayo died of pneumonia and complications of congestive heart failure in the Los Angeles area on January 17, 2005, aged 84, at a nursing home in Thousand Oaks. Her death was reported the next day in The New York Times. … See more