Mary A. Packard (b. Penfield) (1847-1920) was born in Penfield (named after her grandfather, Peter Penfield), Ohio, and died in Los Angeles, California. She married Ira W. Packard, a grain buyer and American Civil War veteran, in Ohio in 1870. They purchased their first copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures while visiting Santa Barbara, California, in 1885. They both studied with Joseph A. Adams and Ellen Brown Linscott in November 1886. The Packards were students of Mary Baker Eddy's, completing the Primary class together in September 1888 and becoming members of the Christian Scientist Association in October 1888. They both joined The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 6, 1895. Packard served as a director of Third Church of Christ, Scientist, Chicago, Illinois. She was listed in the directory of The Christian Science Journal as a Christian Science practitioner in Chicago, Illinois, from 1899 to 1904. The Packards became members of the General Association of Teachers in October 1904, and they were also members of the National Christian Scientist Association. In 1905, Packard was manager of the Chicago Central Reading Rooms. The Packards left Chicago in 1909 and ended up in Los Angeles, where they continued to help advance the cause.

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