The first entry in the scrapbook is dated May 13, 1938 — a yellowed clipping from a local newspaper, glued on an 8½-by-11 sheet of construction paper so brittle with age that just touching it causes it to break apart.

Amateur Show at Pier Today

Singers and Dancers, Whistlers to Compete

Among the entertainers mentioned in the article is a 13-year-old Italian American girl from Staten Island, fresh off representing her borough in a citywide singing competition in Central Park.

The clipping, and dozens more like it meticulously pasted in the scrapbook, chronicle the life of a young singer named Mary. It was the time in her life before high school, before World War II and her first job, before she met “Joe Honey,” her future husband of 61 years, and very long before she gave birth to my sister and me.

From family conversations over the years, I’ve always known my mother sang semiprofessionally in her teens and that my gruff immigrant grandfather would stand in the back of the room listening, tears streaming down his face; but that was about all I knew. How did she otherwise spend those early years? What was her life like growing up in Staten Island? What were her dreams?

The dusty brown scrapbook, long presumed lost but recently unearthed in the back of a cluttered closet, filled in some of the answers.

It also filled me with joy.

Two of my favorite clippings from this trove are from 1940. The first is a photo depicting the finalists in the Fabian Theatre Talent Contest. Sixteen-year-old Mary is surrounded by the Silver Star Rangers — an all-male quintet decked out in hokey western shirts, neckerchiefs and cowboy hats. Two things immediately struck me about this photo. One was how young, innocent and happy Mary looks. The other, how much I resembled her when I was that age.

The second clipping recounts the winners of the theater’s big contest. Mary captured first place, singing Luigi Arditi’s “Il Bacio” (“The Kiss”) in a soprano voice “that quickly won the approval of the audience.” The article continues, “A brown-haired, brown-eyed girl, she was given $50 as a prize.”

You can listen to a recording of “Il Bacio” on YouTube. It’s a lively, challenging work, and you can imagine why Mary’s performance could wow the crowd. Surprisingly, in all the years listening to my mother at the piano, I never heard her sing this song, or even mention it.

Taken together, the scrapbook’s clippings paint a picture of a simple, gentle, community-based life.

Talented and clearly a bit of a ham, Mary seems to never have missed a chance to sing at a church breakfast, Kiwanis luncheon, Christmas-tree lighting, radio broadcast or American Red Cross Christmas show.

Many of the clippings report that she performed Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” I wasn’t surprised. We always knew it was her favorite song, which she sang throughout her life, at family gatherings and in her church choir. In her final days in the nursing facility where she was battling Alzheimer’s disease, she was known to perform it for the night nurses when she couldn’t sleep. She remembered every word.

At her request, it was sung at her funeral, which was in 2019.

The scrapbook ends in 1950, with clippings of Mary’s engagement and wedding announcements.

There’s also a faded, handwritten list of her bridal shower gifts and who gave them, a garter she wore on her wedding day and one of her first paychecks from the Federal Reserve Bank, where was employed as a clerk. (She netted $48.19 for a week’s work.)

What’s obvious but goes unsaid is that with a new husband and thoughts of starting a family, Mary’s performing days were winding down. Any showbiz aspirations would give way to the traditional choices of women in middle-class America in the 1950s.

In the movie “Back to the Future,” Marty McFly climbs into Doc Brown’s supercharged DeLorean and travels back in time, where he meets his high-school-aged parents — awkward, immature young adults just starting to find their way in life.