According to the story told in the Towers family, William, the father of Janet's child Mary died while they were still engaged. As a single mother of an illegitimate child, she was said to have been sent to America to be out of the way. According to Archibald Towers, she was 'half-witted'. She got homesick, and the Lafferty relatives in the USA paid for her return journey. Mary met Janet (Jan) Towers (later McKean) while they were working at Coats' Threadmill in Paisley in the 1950s. Jan's father was embarrassed at this, as it had been a well-kept family secret.

It looks like it was Mary alone who went to America - her mother married in Paisley in 1911 and died 1there in 1956. Mary travelled to Pennsylvania in October 1929, and worked as a servant for a family in Pittsburgh. She returned in November 1931. On both voyages she listed her surname as Towers, address 6 Stock St. Paisley. This is presumably where her two children were living. She divorced her husband in 1944.