Mary House (neé Hewitt) grew up on her father's sheep station 'Springvale' near Wingen on the Hunter River. She was educated at Wingen State School, Muswellbrook Grammar School, and Abbotsleigh School, Parramatta. She married Charles House in 1897 and moved to Queensland, where she lived in the Dawson Valley district until 1938, and then in Rockhampton until her death in 1950. Her son Thomas Norman was killed in action near Kokoda (New Guinea) in 1942.
Apart from her collection of poetry, Lest We Forget: Poems of the Dawson Valley (1946), which she dedicated to her son Norman and his mates, a couple of relatives who were also killed in action, and 'to all those gallant Australian servicemen who will return to our midst no more', Mary House contributed to various Australian journals, such as the Artesian, the Capricornian, and the Central Queensland Herald.
