Mary Cheyney Gould is a native of Bluefield, West Virginia where she attended local schools and acquired her first interest in music.

She studied piano under her Mother’s tutelage from age 5 to 7, then going on to other teachers. Attended local schools through high school,when a fine choral director, Elizabeth Shelton, stimulated an interest in choral music and arranged for attendance for 3 summers at the Westminster Choir College High School Clinic, then held in Massachusetts at Mt. Hermon School. This experience caused a lifelong addiction to both choral music and New England from which she has never recovered. It also determined that she would attend Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ, graduating with a BMus degree with Majors in Voice and Organ in 1946.