no exciting pictures, besides mr. isaacs’ word pictures. this is quite long, i apologize. but i think worth going through for his very last sentence. and nice to hear all the details, as only mr. isaacs would give. his report of Marie Hearn’s funeral:
“It did her justice. Everybody there seemed to be proud to know her. It was hard to get a head count, because I couldn’t really swivel my head and count in the midst of the event. But I estimated 185 people, early on a Wednesday afternoon. It was in the simple but comfortable, spacious, and attractive sanctuary at Marie’s church — the conservative Presb. one that many homeschooling families go to. Great hymnal (Trinity).
It’s a fairly new building. Excellent ventilation, and a remarkable sound system. The preacher spoke rather quietly, two feet from the mike, and was clear as a bell.
( I don’t think anybody should speak quietly to 185 people. If it’s not important enough to speak up about — when there are 185 people — keep it a secret. Microphones are like e-mail to a fluent typist. They encourage a feckless wordiness.)
It’s one of those wide sanctuaries, wider than deep. New style.
I sat on the left next to Marie Berg Marino and Fred Marino and Donna Freed.
Near us sat Bill and Betty Mears, Dolly Borders, Janet Hayman, her husband Francis Hayman, and Penny Bunting.
We saw former home-school mother Lindy Hall in a faraway seat. She has viewed me with alarm ever since the Di’s moved to Missouri [not sure what that has to do with it—ed]. Women have viewed me with alarm since birth, and I’ve about lost my respect for it. I mistrust anything short of adulation, and I don’t have much respect for that. Who shall deliver me from this body of death?
The Berg’s next-door neighbor, Sandy Mills (Mrs. Rick Mills) spoke to us.
Joe and Cris and their two daughters, who are as tall as their parents, sat in the reserved section immediately behind Marie’s family. (They were the only ones not blood kin who sat there. I’m sure they have become family, by many services involving the care of Vernon or something.) Only one daughter chewed gum, and only for half the service. Cris now has straight, golden brown(?) hair to her shoulders; looks very good.
Denise sat beside me for a while, but left just before the service began in order to lead a Bible study at a nursing home nearby. She pointed out to me several neighbors of Marie’s.
At the center of the front row of seats were Vernon in his wheelchair, and Roger and Dierdre and their eleven year old Margaret (”Maggie Marie”, I think Marie called her at first). Margaret appeared pretty, with golden brown hair to her shoulders. Her mother now has about the same color and style of hair. Still a peach to look at, when she smiles. So is the peach lady, of course — Mrs. Freed.
Roger’s hair is mostly grey; he looks like both his parents, perhaps favoring the father. Not tall, and middle-aged in shape. His manner was solemn, professional, and self-controlled, though not unfeeling.
They now live in Dierdre’s home town of Wellesley, Mass., where Roger is a hospital chaplain.
Vernon looked very thin and stiff as they wheeled him out later. Denise went up and spoke to him just before the service, as a number of people did. She said she didn’t think he recognized her.
Marie’s pastor is a tall man my age with a southern accent. He did a marvelous job of opening the meeting with some master-of-ceremonies introductory remarks that acknowledged all of Marie’s loved ones present.
Then Roger spoke, without notes, fluently and evenly. He speaks in a sort of professional Episcopal priest sing-song. I’m sure he gets a lot of practice at that in the hospital. Soothing. And he has probably had a lifetime of experience at calming any situation in which Marie was involved, in order to make it meet his own temperament halfway.
His remarks were not personal in nature, but pastoral.
Then the pastor read a whole lot of Scripture, from something trustworthy like the NKJV.
Then Salisbury’s mayor, Barrie Parsons Tilghman spoke. She had never heard of Marie till she ran for mayor in ‘98. Then Marie, having known her parents for decades, began to support and encourage her — from a distance. When they met a year later, Marie held her hands and prayed aloud. They became great pals. It was sort of obvious to me that they were similar personalities, outgoing and outspoken. Made for each other. There were lots of phone calls and messages and and lunches and Scriptures passed between them.
The mayor’s eulogy was really delightful. She quoted Marie several times, and everyone recognized it as the authentic and inimitable voice of Marie Hearn. I wrote down one thing she said — “The term ‘on fire for the Lord’ has Marie’s picture beside it in the dictionary.”
Then the pastor gave a sermon that I more or less slept through. Twice he said “Marie would tell me now to ‘make it quick!” and keep it short, so I will.”
But he didn’t. (No wonder she admonished him that way.) He figured if the congregation was Marie’s friends, they were his. Not a bad assumption.
He said one memorable thing. Said he’s been a Presbyterian pastor for 22 years, but Marie was the only woman who’s ever said anything like this to him. She said it within ten minutes of meeting him, in 2000 –
“I can’t wait for you to meet my husband. He’s the most wonderful man in the world.”
The drive to the Pittsville cemetery, in perfect, cloudless, 75 degree weather, took us past the Berg’s house. It looks great, including the schoolhouse. Somebody is maintaining the house and grounds in an ideal way, without any obvious changes from the Berg’s time.
Marie’s tombstone is immediately to the right of the Bergs’, on a sandy rise. It will be Paul, Anne and Marie, shoulder to shoulder — 3 feet apart, maybe. (Or Anne, Paul and Marie — I didn’t notice the order.) Joe had a hard time pushing Vernon in the wheelchair through the sand.
Roger did the brief graveside ceremony, again in a professional manner. To the ear, he hasn’t lost all his Pittsville-ism. “According to Thy good playsure” — “laid him in the sep-la-ker.”
Well, I come to the end of my notes. Marie deserved a beautiful day, and a crowd of friends at the service, and she got it.
Mrs. Betty Mears looks and sounds the same as ever, except her hair is white now. Bill Mears looked and sounded well, though he is now slim. He has a small grey fuzzy mustache, and has lost a tooth or two. Janet Hayman is the same, a little more stooped, and lighter in weight. Same with her husband. She’s still a positive thinker.
Penny Bunting looks older than one would want for her, though she stands tall. It’s hard to be single. She spoke easily and well when I asked about T.J., whom I had seen a year or more before in a small Millsboro restaurant he was managing. She said he now works for a subsidiary of Nationwide Insurance. The office is in Salisbury, but he travels around Del. and such, dealing with other workers in the company. When I saw him, he and his wife and baby were living in a home they’d bought near Millsboro.
Marie Berg Marino is the same as ever, or better (I’ll be copying this to her). Her husband Fred looked well for a man who is on the mend from the removal of a sick thyroid gland.
It was fun to talk to Joe Berg again.
Donna Freed goes to a Presb. church in Cambridge, about which she is enthusiastic. She spoke to Marie M. at length , in a grateful way, about Marie M’s parents — I think; I wasn’t eavesdropping.
End of long e-mail. All the references to women’s hair do not mean I’ve gone gay.
Many more things happened during our Colorado excursion but I don’t have pictures to back them up, so these will have to do.
