Marjorie Hershey RIP

[Michael Eisenstadt]

August 3 Statesman obit:

Reflecting on the style and grace of Marjorie Hershey, who passed away 
in Austin, July 31, 2003, a friend of hers wrote: ``I loved that woman 
the minute I laid eyes on her.'' Marjorie Bern Larsen Hershey was a 
rarity in Texas - she had the breeding, home decor, and sometimes the 
air of American gentility. A distant relative of President James 
Monroe-and the Dr. Mudd who attended Lincoln assassin John Wilkes 
Booth-Marjorie grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, and in an antebellum 
farmhouse called Belleville in verdant Virginia countryside. She lived 
and traveled in Europe for some years. But she remarked wittily on her 
rhythms of hanging out laundry in her back yard in Austin, and was 
always walking blocks for favored candidates in league with her friend, 
mentor, and Democratic precinct chairman, a union carpenter. Her often 
quoted role model was an aunt of old Southern school named Laura 
Bonifant. But Marjorie's alter ego was Henrietta- for many years her nom 
de plume as Austin's most acerbic and avidly read gossip columnist. 
Marge was educated in Bethesda, Washington, D.C., Paris, and Austin. She 
took her degree at the University of Texas in economics. She arrived in 
Austin in 1962 with a passion for literature, the music of Cole Porter 
and Bobby Short, and strongly held political persuasions. She was 
president of the Central Texas chapter of the ACLU. She taught English 
at the university, worked as a researcher and writer for comptrollers 
Bob Bullock and John Sharp, and for the River City Sun and Third Coast, 
delighted in the barbs and sallies that flowed from Henrietta's 
semi-secret pen. One column began: ``Q: What do you get when you combine 
Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, and the South Texas Nuclear Project? A: Two 
moneymakers and a dog.'' Marge's parties and Christmas Eve celebrations 
in her Brykerwood home were legendary. Her political champions included 
former Travis County commissioner John Milloy and Senator Gonzalo 
Barrientos. Among writers and reporters, her many friends included Billy 
Lee Brammer, author of Austin's best-known novel The Gay Place. Brammer 
wrote a friend a letter in 1969, describing a party that struck him as 
long on disaffection and cynical poses, except for one: ``Marge looking 
soulful and marvelously unpolluted.'' Her Austin haunts moved from 
Scholz Beer Garten to the Raw Deals to the Texas Chili Parlor. With 
friends she regularly traveled to Chicago and she often returned to her 
beloved homes and family in Maryland and Virginia. Marjorie had severe 
health problems for forty years; even they were gist for her hooting, 
bawdy laugh. Hurtling toward the Mayo Clinic, she once raced through an 
airport in Rochester, New York, only to learn from a cabdriver that the 
famous hospital is in Rochester, Minnesota. Marjorie was a great beauty, 
fair-skinned in the extreme, appearing almost fragile. Yet late in her 
life she could be found in July heat hiking three miles up a rough trail 
of Turkey Creek with a friend and five dogs. She was generous and 
good-hearted and valiant in the past year's fight. Austin has lost one 
of its all-time great characters: always a class act. Marjorie is 
survived by her son, Jeffrey Michael Hershey of Austin; her brother, 
Eric Bonifant Larsen of Bethesda; and numerous cousins. She was 
remembered Monday morning, at 11:00 a.m., at Weed- Corley-Fish, 3125 N. 
Lamar. Another service will follow at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in her 
second home of Powhatan. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, 
memorials be sent to the Texas Nurses Foundation, 7600 Burnet Rd. #440, 
Austin 78757. Arrangements by Weed-Corley- Fish Funeral Home, 3125 N. 
Lamar, 452-8811. You may view memorials at http://www.wcfish.com