Mary R. Fitzbutler Waring was a physician who served as president of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACW).
Waring was born in Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada. She was the daughter of doctors Henry and Sarah Fitzbutler. The family moved to the States in 1875 and was living in Louisville in 1880.

Waring studied at the Louisville National Medical College, which her father owned and operated. She later graduated from the National Medical College of Chicago in 1923.

As a young woman, she taught for several years and was an officer in the Illinois Federation of Women’s Clubs in 1913. During World War I, Waring was chair of Red Cross Work for the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs; she was also chair of the organization’s Department of Health and Hygiene for many years. Waring also helped organized a canteen, and nurses’ training classes in Chicago for African-American women, during the war.

After the war, she attended the 1920 International Council of Women meeting in Christiania, Norway. She was appointed to the advisory board of the Frederick Douglass Home in 1923. She regularly wrote columns on public health topics for women’s publications, including National Notes.
By 1933, Waring had been elected president of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs. During her presidency, one of her policy initiatives was a drive to destroy toy guns. Mary R. Fitzbutler Waring died in 1958, she was 88.

sources:

http://nkaa.uky.edu/nkaa/items/show/845