Bloomington, Nebraska - On September 8, 1940, at Enid General Hospital, Mamie Way was born to Anna Clara (Chapman) and Forrest Mack Meise. She was their first child.

The family lived in various locations across Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, moving wherever work could be found. At the age of two, Mamie contracted rheumatic fever and was hospitalized in a coma for 30 days. When she awoke, she was unable to move from the waist down and was feared to be paralyzed. Her family placed her on the floor daily, and, slowly, she began to move her legs again and regained strength. She learned to crawl and eventually to walk once more.

During World War II, Mamie's father worked at Boeing Aircraft in Wichita, Kansas. Mamie attended kindergarten and first grade in Cheney, Kansas. She spent much of her childhood living on family farms in the country with extended family, where there was no electricity, running water, or indoor plumbing. As soon as it grew dark, the family would go to bed. When the family moved to the old Woody place on Rebecca Creek in Franklin County, Nebraska, Mamie attended the one-room Woody Country School, located just 1/8 mile from their home, for one year (1947-1948). In 1948, Woody consolidated with Naponee Grade School, where Mamie completed grades 4 through 8.

In the summer of 1952, when Mamie was twelve, she lived with the Eugene Schnuerle family, who lived about four miles west of her parents. They had recently had a baby girl, and Mamie helped with housework, cooking, laundry, and canning and freezing garden vegetables and fruit. She also helped butcher over 100 fryer-sized chickens, a task that was new to her since her family had never had a freezer.

Mamie returned to Oklahoma and graduated in 1958 from Covington High School, where she was named 1958 Mr. and Mrs. Covington alongside Jim Kegin. Her ambition was to be the perfect housewife.

Two weeks later, on June 2, 1958, at the age of 17, she married Charles E. Way Jr. in the home of Rev. and Mrs. W.B. Gilliland in Covington. The couple made their home in Covington, where they lived in a house Charles moved from a farm using her grandfather Meise's house-moving equipment. In 1968, they moved back to Naponee, Nebraska, where they spent most of their time raising their two boys. Mamie worked as the Naponee Village Clerk and also as a secretary for both the Franklin Public Schools and the ASCS office in Franklin. In May 1979, the family returned to Covington, and, in 1982, they moved a house they purchased from Vance Air Force Base onto one of the family farm properties acquired by Elmer Eliada Way in 1893, just outside of Covington.

Mamie was known for her love of being well-dressed, having painted nails, and getting "gussied up." She wanted a career that allowed her to maintain her sense of style, and her love of bookwork led her to a career in banking. She worked as a teller supervisor for Liberty Federal Savings Bank for over seven years and as a bookkeeper for Security National for more than 10 years. Before retiring, she wanted to try something different and worked for Startek, an AT&T cell phone customer service company that was just starting in Enid. She was one of the first 267 employees and was on the first team of 30 employees to begin taking calls. Later, after Mamie retired, her granddaughter Rebecca Way also worked there.

Mamie hosted many family reunions in the 1990s and loved staying in touch with family, keeping everyone in the loop. She was an avid genealogist for over 40 years and took great pride in putting together the family lineage. She inherited her vibrant red hair from her Scottish and Irish ancestors. Mamie also enjoyed gardening, canning, and freezing vegetables. Every year, she picked wild sand plums and wild dewberries to make jelly from the couple's farm. She loved reading, crocheting, playing cards and board games, and cooking. She enjoyed having family and friends over for meals and conversations. One of her favorite pastimes was watching silent movies, romantic films, and any movie starring Doris Day. Her favorite film was By the Light of the Silvery Moon. Mamie also loved marigolds, and during conversations she would always mention what made her happy, feeling blessed, and end with a joke. One of her favorite ways to joke around was saying "Tally ho!" instead of goodbye.

On October 14, 2012, Mamie and Charles were moved by family members to Bloomington, Nebraska, to be closer to Mamie's siblings. Mamie spent over 11 years caring for Charles after he suffered strokes that left him bedridden. She cared for him until his passing at home on November 16, 2016, at the age of 84. The family is thankful to friends, family, and the local community for helping make their lives in Bloomington as comfortable as possible.

As a devout Christian, when Mamie received her terminal diagnosis she made it a priority to contact her family and friends to ensure they believed in Jesus and were saved. On March 9, 2025, at the age of 84, all that loving hands could do was done. She passed away after a brief stay in the nearby Arbor Care Nursing Home in Franklin, Nebraska.

She is preceded in death by her parents, husband Charles E. Way Jr., son Randy Way, and brother Bill Meise. She is survived by her sister Linda Zade and adopted sister Thelma Garcia of Alma, Nebraska; son Benny Way of Orleans, Nebraska; granddaughter Rebecca (Way) Schmidt of Covington, Oklahoma; great-granddaughters Lyla Sue and Kelsey Lynn Schmidt of Alva, Oklahoma; widowed daughter-in-law Sue Way of Enid, Oklahoma; and other distant relatives and friends.

The Central Nebraska Cremation Services handled her cremation. There was no visitation or book signing. She was laid to rest privately by family and friends at the Naponee Cemetery in Naponee, Nebraska, where she is buried with her husband and other family members.