Bernice Mary Frey was born in 1900 in Barry County, MI to William Frey and Mary Greer Frey. In 1916, she began a daily diary and continued to do so until shortly before her death in 2000. She attended high school in Battle Creek and enrolled in Western State Normal School in 1917 for one year to receive a teaching certificate. She taught elementary and middle school in Battle Creek, also coaching boys’ sports in this role. In 1926, her fiancé, Leon... Wildermuth, was killed in a construction accident when scaffolding broke in Jackson, MI. At this time, she began training to become a nurse at the Battle Creek Sanitarium under Dr. John Harvey Kellogg.

Upon graduating, Bernice and her family moved to Michigan City, IN where she worked as a nurse both privately and in a hospital. She also began substitute teaching in the public-school system around this time, and in 1935, she married Sheldon Maxey, a public-school teacher. Bernice and Sheldon had two sons, Lawrence and Brian, in 1937 and 1940. In 1950, she was asked to create an experimental classroom for “crippled children”, becoming a pioneer in special education. In the following year, the school district incorporated her program. She earned a bachelors degree at Western Michigan College in 1953, and continued working in special education until her retirement in 1962.

In her retirement, Bernice volunteered in her church and in many local service organizations. Her husband died in 1995, so she moved to Kalamazoo to be closer to her son, Bill, and his family. She passed away in 2000, just a few months shy of her 101st birthday.