Mercedes Godoy

Godoy was a debutante in the 1905–1906 social season in Washington, D.C.,^[8] while her father was the Mexican consul in that city.^[9][10][11] She was described as resembling Alice Roosevelt Longworth.^[12][13] She was a delegation aide to the Women's Auxiliary Committee, at the Second Pan-American Scientific Conference in 1915.^[14][15]

Godoy was a trained singer. In 1915, she sang at a musical evening given by the Musical Harmony Club at the Colonial School for Girls.^[16] In 1916, she became vice-president of the Harmony Improvement Society.^[17] In 1917, she was on the committee for a Red Cross benefit dance at the Cairo hotel.^[18] In 1918, she appeared in a one-act play in Spanish, at a benefit for earthquake relief in Guatemala.^[19]

In 1919 Godoy published a memoir of her childhood games, holidays, foods, and other details, When I Was a Girl in Mexico.^[20] "This book will be a revelation to those American children who imagine that Mexican is a synonym for bandits," predicted one reviewer.^[21] It was part of the "Children of Other Lands" series about childhoods in different cultures, including Hólmfríður Árnadóttir's When I Was a Girl in Iceland, Cornelia De Groot's When I Was a Girl in Holland, Mousa J. Kaleel's When I Was a Boy in Palestine, and Yan Phou Lee's When I Was a Boy in China.^[22]

Godoy lived in Washington, Havana, and New York as a young woman, with her parents and her siblings.^[23] She was living in Mexico City when her mother died in 1923.^[24]