Mary Taintor was born on July 25, 1889 in Rochester, Minnesota.  She graduated from Ripon College in 1911 and received a degree from Stanford University in 1918.  She was also a student in Italy at the American Classical School in Rome in 1911 and 1912; she also studied at the University of Grenoble in France. Taintor did graduate work at both the University of Chicago (1919) and Columbia University (1926-1928). 

Taintor began her teaching career at Milwaukee State Normal School as an instructor of Latin and French from between 1912 and 1917. She also taught Latin and French at Venice High School in California in 1918.  In 1919, she returned to Ripon College as a full professor of French. 

In 1928, Taintor joined the Dickinson College faculty in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as an associate professor of romance languages in 1928. In 1951 she achieved the rank of full professor, becoming only the third woman to obtain that position at Dickinson College.  She later retired in 1959 as professor emerita of romance languages.  Mary Taintor died on February 5, 1981, at the age of 90.