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Buena Selma Margason was born in Salem, Oregon on August 2, 1898 to Eldridge G. Margason and Margaret L. Hart Margason. In 1900, the Margasons were living in Lacomb, Oregon, a small community about ten miles northeast of Lebanon, where Eldridge taught school (likely in the Lacomb schoolhouse). By 1920, the family had moved to Portland where Eldridge worked as a physician.

Mockmore attended the University of Oregon briefly before her marriage to William Homer Maris in 1920. Maris completed a Master of Science degree in Agriculture at OSC in 1918, authored the OSC alma mater Carry Me Back, and was the brother of long-time OSC Extension Service Director Paul V. Maris. Shortly after they married, Maris – as supervisor of agricultural training for the Rehabilitation Division of the Veterans’ Federal Bureau in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho – was called to Washington, D.C. to “study problems of land settlement for disabled ex-service men.” While there, Mockmore attended George Washington University. Their daughter, Marjorie, was born in 1925 while they were in Washington, D.C.

In September 1926, the family returned to Oregon from Washington D.C., travelling overland by car and finally settling in Oak Harbor, Washington, where they purchased a plot of land. Homer was hired by the College of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington – now the University of Puget Sound – and planned to begin teaching in Fall 1931. In August 1933, however, Maris was the victim of a fatal hit-and-run while bicycling home from an event in town. After Homer’s death, Mockmore herself attended the College of Puget Sound, completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1936.

After graduation, Mockmore taught school in Tacoma for a year before coming to Oregon State College. While at OSC, Mockmore taught courses in Household Administration and family relationships, while pursuing a Master of Science degree in Home Economics. She completed her Master’s thesis, “An Analysis of 150 College Students' Attitudes Toward Content of a Course in Family Relationships,” in 1939.

Upon the retirement of Dean of Women Kate W. Jameson in 1941, Maris was selected by the State Board to take up the mantle, serving in that capacity until 1948. From September 1, 1943 to September 1, 1944, however, she took a leave of absence to serve as the de facto "Dean of Women" for female employees of the DuPont Company at the Manhattan Project’s Hanford, Washington site. Maris’s position – alternately referred to as “Dean of Women” and the “Director of Women’s Activities” – supervised all work done by women at the Hanford site; she received a War Department citation for this work.

Mockmore returned to her position as Dean of Women at OSC after her work on the Manhattan Project. In 1946, she married Dr. Charles Mockmore, the head of civil engineering at OSC. When Dr. Mockmore died of a heart attack in 1953, Mockmore again left OSC to join the staff at Iowa State University (ISU), where she worked as an Extension Specialist in child development and family life. In the seven years she spent at ISU, Mockmore developed a two-step program aimed at improving communication and understanding between parents and their teenaged children by speaking to high school assemblies first, followed by parents' meetings. In just one year, she spoke to over 17,000 young people as part of this program.

Mockmore returned to Oregon after marrying Avery Steinmetz in 1960. She served as the President of the Oregon Home Economics Association for two years, was active in the American Association of University Women, and continued to teach and lecture on topics relating to family life and child development. She passed away in Portland, Oregon on December 18, 1967. Mockmore was survived by her husband, Avery; a daughter from her first marriage, Mrs. Marjorie Maris Peterson; and four stepchildren: Charlotte Mockmore Spring, Regina T. Mockmore, William E. Steinmetz, and Gretchen E. Bunnell.