Uryadnikova (Belaya) Maria Petrovna was born on December 2, 1924, in Nizhniy Kislyai village, Losevsky district, Voronezh region. Her family lived very poorly. It was especially difficult time during the hungry 1933 and 1939. Then the war began. In the same year, his father died of tuberculosis, and a couple of years later his mother died. After graduating school in 1941, at the age of 16 Maria went to work as an evacuation nurse in a military hospital in the village. But she wanted to go to the front. On July 2, 1942, Maria Petrovna voluntarily entered the army, became a medical officer of the 5th Military Unit.