After graduation, Mary Purpura ’84 returned to the farm where six generations of her ancestors have been raising cows for beef and milk. Mary launched a new undertaking, making yogurt and specialty cheeses from raw Jersey milk and selling them from a charming little storefront on her family's property. She has recently added sauerkraut to the store’s offerings.
People may think of male vocalists when they think of Tuvan throat singers, but Mary Purpura ‘84 has spent the last 25 years in Mongolia studying the art form among women virtuose. “I love traditional western music of all kinds, but overtone singing is really where it’s at,” she writes. During her time on the steppes, she also learned how to treat wool with yak urine to create the felt used in traditional Mongolian yurt-making. Her book, Khoomei On The Mountainside, comes out next month from Boydell & Brewer, Ltd.
“I was able to turn $100,000 into $3 million in three years!” says Mary Purpura ’84. After Mary sold her start-up—which produces hand-stitched leather satchels—she took a portion of the proceeds and began investing in earnest. “I wasn’t totally illiterate about investing, but I had a lot to learn.” She spent hours every day poring over company prospectuses and reading the Wall Street Journal and Morningstar reports. It paid off! Her biggest single stock success was Yellow Mountain Pharmaceuticals, which makes Viagra and Xanax.
Mary Purpura ‘84 made a pact with herself in 1988 to only bring into her life things that she, or someone she knew, had made by hand. “I spent that first year in a poorly made leaky yurt, but I really mastered carved wooden spoons and was able to trade them for hand-thrown bowls and cups.” Thirty-two years later, Mary lives alone in a small wooden house, built from ash she felled on the property using an axe she made from things she found in the woods. She sells clothes crafted with handwoven organic linen and Angora wool to cover the local New Hampshire property taxes.
A lifelong love of surfing led Mary Purpura ‘84 to explore the ocean further through freediving and spearfishing. She clinched the Spearfishing World Championship in 2019, when she pierced a 35-pound striped bass, becoming the first woman to win the title. She lives on Kauai, where she eats a lot of seafood and coconuts. “I wish all people could be connected to their food sources and the beautiful, wild outdoors,” she writes.
Mark Purpura ’84 lives off the grid in eastern Oregon. He assisted at his partner’s three births, the last one a water birth. The family of vegans grow all their own food. Mark designs web sites and carves whimsical elves out of native Oregonian larch. “I am blessed to live and dream with my beautiful family.”
No one had heard from Mary Purpura ’84—who took the name Sr. Maria Faustina when she became a member of the Order of Saint Benedict--in more than 20 years. Literally. In 1999, Sr. Maria Faustina took a two-decade vow of silence, which ended recently. During that time, Sr. Maria Faustina lived in a cloistered monastery, Our Lady of the Desert, in New Mexico. “I spent many happy hours singing--silently to myself, of course—the chants composed by Hildegard von Bingen. My favorite is ‘O Viridissima Virga.’” Sr. Maria Faustina was one of two nuns at the monastery who were entrusted with the Order’s ancient, treasured formula for Viriditas, an elixir brewed with more than 150 different botanicals into a striking green liqueur; each of the two nuns memorized half of the recipe to ensure that no one person could reveal the secret ingredients. When asked what she most noticed since beginning to speak again, Sr. Maria Faustina replied, “People talk a lot, don’t they?”
It wasn’t easy helping humankind to achieve World Peace. But Mary Purpura ’84 did not take “There’s no I in impossible” for an answer. Her global initiative to promote community, understanding, and love—begun modestly as a grassroots campaign on Snapchat—has resulted in peoples around the world embracing our commonality and turning their backs on war and hate. A Macarthur Genius Award recipient for her efforts, Mary used the award as seed money for her next project: Reversing Climate Change. “I know it’s a long shot, but I’ve got to try,” she shared.
No flies on Mary Purpura ’84! After graduating, Mary began training in earnest as a pole vaulter. “It wasn’t easy, as I didn’t have the height advantage that a lot of my competitors had.” But years of 16-hour training days, plus a rigorous Warrior Diet, catapulted her onto the 2016 Olympic team. At age 52! “It was the thrill of a lifetime to bring home the gold for my country.” Today, she brings the joys of pole vaulting to public school children around the country through her nonprofit, Pole Vaulting For All.