About
Mary Keeny is the matriarch of the Keeny line, and the great-grandmother of Jonathan Crane.Mary's own grandfather shot himself in the cellar during the Great Depression, and her mother hanged herself soon after. She was left to raise her own daughter, Marion and her granddaughter, Karen, on her own. After Karen's "little folly" with Gerald Crane, both daughter and granddaughter left her alone in the crumbling mansion with Karen's newborn son.
Marion wanted the baby to be killed and buried in the aviary in the back yard; Mary spared him, though her motives for doing so are unclear: perhaps to spite her selfish daughter, perhaps to assuage her own dark needs. She named the child Jonathan, after the son she never had herself---or, according to him, the son that she "never got to torture."
Her relationship with her great-grandson was hardly loving, and even as a child, he often questioned her sanity. Mary was very religious and had a need to control the boy's every move and thought, going so far as to lock him in the aviary and let a flock of crows attack him when she felt he had strayed from the righteous path. She also turned a blind eye to his schoolyard torment, as it was God's will that he learn to face his fears.
It has been hinted that she has an affinity for birds---she was always seen wearing a bird-shaped brooch, and the crows were her favorite form of punishment. Mary's only redeeming factor was that she did not want Jonathan to end up like his mother: sexually careless and willing to run away from responsibility.
Mary's attempts to push him from his mother's path worked...albeit too well. Jonathan, growing up lacking any maternal affection and with no one else to turn to, became withdrawn and cold. He was also immensely intelligent, and learned how she got the crows to attack him...and turned the tables after strengthening her own formula.
Her death, as well as her means to terrify him, became the first steps in Jonathan Crane's transformation into the Scarecrow.
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*smirk*