Obituary:

Mary was married to Garrison Keillor 1965 - 1976.  They had one son, Jason.

Mary Guntzel

This is excerpted from an article in The Guardian, UK, profiling Garrison Keillor.  

Garrison Keillor married Mary Guntzel in 1965 while still a student at the University of Minnesota.  Their son, Jason, who works for Keillor's radio production company, was born in 1969. The couple divorced in 1976 and Guntzel died in 1998. She had worked with mentally handicapped adults in Minnesota. One of the major characters in Love Me is based closely on her and the book is dedicated to her memory. "I really admired her," says Keillor. "She was someone who found herself when she dared to take a role championing people who were not capable of standing up for themselves. Her great cause was working with people coming out of state-run hospitals who were not used to having civil rights and being independent. It was something that deeply engaged her in ways that being married to a writer and moving in a writer's circle did not. She found it awkward and painful and it made her feel self-conscious and inferior."  ......... Jason Keillor says he grew up with the Prairie Home Companion show.  "I remember my mother driving the musicians and artists back and forth to performances and then me picking up popcorn from between the seats after the show."