Mary Wolf Wilkinson was born in
Brooklyn,
New York, as the second daughter and fourth of six children of Mary Agnes (née Wolf) and Harry Rockefellow Wilkinson. She grew up in
Madison, New Jersey, graduating from
Madison High School, she then studied
fine art at the
Art Students League in New York. Streep trained as a fine artist and became the art-editor for
Home Furnishings Magazine and also did commercial artwork on a freelance basis. Mary had an art studio in the back of her home. She married pharmaceutical company executive Harry Wilbur Streep Jr. and had a daughter,
Meryl, and two sons, Dana Streep and Harry Wilbur Streep III (husband of actress
Maeve Kinkead). She is also the grandmother of Streep's children, musician
Henry Wolfe, actresses
Mamie Gummer and
Grace Gummer, and model
Louisa Gummer. Her son-in-law,
Don Gummer, is also an artist, a sculptor. Meryl Streep has often stated in interviews that her mother has been the inspiration for some of her characters she has played on the screen. Mary enrolled her daughter in voice lessons at the age of twelve after noticing her daughter's need to perform. ==Death==