Mary Elsie Rose, daughter of Charles Edward Rose and Mary Virginia (McKee) Rose, was born in Spring Hill, Kansas in May 1892. Soon thereafter, the Rose family relocated to Paola, also in Miami County in eastern Kansas. After graduating from Kansas State Agriculture College in Manhattan, Kansas, she embarked upon a lifelong career in teaching and education spanning the years 1911 to 1962. In 1916, at the age of 24, she married Buford Varble Kirby, employed in the grain business. Five years later, in Conception Junction, Missouri, she gave birth to a daughter, Mary Madge Kirby.

Kirby taught in several Kansas communities, including Chiles, Bucyrus, Lawrence, Olathe, and Stillwell. In the latter two locales she rose to the administrative level of principal (1940s-1950s). By the time she settled in Lawrence, Kansas, the community in which she eventually retired, she was considered too old to serve in an administrative capacity, but she continued teaching second grade at Woodlawn School, plus teaching night classes at the high school. Kirby also fostered her own professional development by acquiring a Master of Arts degree in education from the University of Kansas in 1952.

In 1962 Mary Rose Kirby officially retired from her teaching/education career, remaining in Lawrence, Kansas, until her death on October 21, 1978.