Mary McCartney's midwifery paid well, and her earnings enabled them to move into 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton, where they lived until 1964.: "Mary was the family's primary wage earner"; : "where they lived through 1964". She rode a bicycle to her patients; McCartney described an early memory of her leaving at "about three in the morning [the] streets ... thick with snow". On 31 October 1956, when McCartney was 14, his mother died of an embolism as a complication of surgery for breast cancer.: On Mary's death (secondary source); : On Mary's death (primary source); : Mary died from an embolism. McCartney's loss later became a connection with John Lennon, whose mother, Julia, died in 1958 when Lennon was 17.
