Person:Marion Strauch (2)

She graduated from Horace Mann School, attended Smith College, and graduated from Barnard College in New York City, having attended from February 1915 through May 1917, graduating on June 6, 1917, with a major in English. She was engaged before World War I, but her fiancee, Eliphalet Snedecor, like her brother Edmund, died in France during the war. After the war she worked for the Nestle's Company on Herbert Hoover's program supplying food to Europe. Later she worked for Tamplin & Brown who were in the business of raising money for colleges. She was sent to Oberlin College to organize the campaign there. In her later years she was the first woman to be a member of the vestry of Kingston Parish in Mathews County, Virginia.

In 1965 she built a house on the East River in Mathews, on the cove of Poplar Grove plantation. This house was on a road off to the right of VA Highway 198 halfway from Mathews to Port Haywood. At the time it was the only house on the south side of the cove, although my father dredged and bulk-headed the next lot in anticipation of using it in a never to be realized retirement. As always my grandmother surrounded it with gardens full of flowers and beautiful trees. I had a small sailboat there from the beginning, and later my father's Soverel 27 was there as well. Mobjack Bay and its various rivers were well explored.

My grandmother was a busy, capable women, active in many social and community endeavors. Whether it was Church, Woman's Club or Garden Club, she took these activities very seriously and often led groups, sometimes as president. Along with my grandfather, she had many friends and enjoyed regular social activities. She was well-informed and well-traveled, and had well-thought out, creative opinions on most issues of the day. She always provided me with uniquely interesting and challenging conversation and companionship.

1.   After cremation her family deposited her ashes in the Poplar Grove cove.