Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 3, 1994 TAG: 9403030187
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Some continued to think that influenced their liberal views on racial segregation.
Today, the couple can laugh at assumptions. At 86, he's now "Bill," and she, at 80, is "Blossom."
Bill Marmion, who has been retired as bishop of the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia for 15 years, was honored during the annual convention of Episcopalians in Blacksburg recently. He got a standing ovation while telling serious and funny incidents that happened during the 25 years he was the church's spiritual and administrative leader.
There were times, though, when he would not have gotten an ovation.
The Marmions, both Texas natives, took the coming of racial integration for granted when they came to Roanoke in the fall of 1953 after the bishop's election. Their ideas, Marmion says, were ahead of those of many of the Episcopal flock.
The process of finding a new bishop was conducted differently 40 years ago, and no one asked Marmion his views about race, he says. He was a Southerner by background, had gone to Virginia Theological Seminary and had friends in the diocese. The fact that he was in a short pastorate in Delaware when he was elected did not reduce his roots or the family's love of Southern culture, both Marmions emphasize.
"I didn't learn racial tolerance in my home in Houston or in my culture. I learned it in the Episcopal church, especially at youth conferences," Bill Marmion recalls. As a youth from a hard-working family, "we didn't talk social issues at home."
The Episcopal church in Houston had a major influence on him and his older brother, Gresham. Both went to college and seminary. In a rare happening, both were elected bishops within six months of one another. Because Episcopal bishops retain their titles for life, even though they must give up active service at 72, the brothers continue to sit next to each other at meetings of the national House of Bishops.
Going north to Wilmington was a cultural shock, but the bishop, his wife and two sons - who were born in Alabama - came to like it so well that it took Marmion six weeks to decide if he would accept the call as bishop of Southwestern Virginia.
"I think I had the shortest bishop's honeymoon on record," he says with a grim smile. "There was this wonderful consecration ceremony on May 13, 1954 [in Roanoke's St. John's Church], and then on May 17, the Supreme Court outlawed segregation. The next week, our annual convention was held. I think I just mentioned the decision that time."
Marmion wanted his new diocese to have a conference center open to all races. When a place was found by 1958, the bishop announced that there would be no segregation at Hemlock Haven, an old resort near Marion that the Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia bought after a long search. After nearly 30 years of use as a church conference center, the diocesan board sold it in the mid-1980s to the Virginia park system.
In 1958, the Virginia government's resistance to racial integration affected the thinking of many Episcopalians, especially several lay leaders who opposed Marmion's goal of open conferences for youth. A storm cloud broke over Western Virginia Episcopalians.
Longtime church members recall five years of spiritual torment that followed for the bishop, other clergy and many members.
Each annual business meeting of the diocese until 1962 was marked by clergy delegates, who generally supported the bishop, voting against laity who favored the status quo over the issue of integrating summer meetings for youth at the Marion camp. Feelings ran so high that little other church business could be accomplished.
Marmion stood firm and, in time, decreed the integration of three small black congregations with whites. He also tangled with some Virginia political leaders - some his own church members - in the days of massive resistance.
It took eight more years, the bishop says, for adjustments to be made so the church could go on with its business.
"And the irony was, it was all principle. When we finally worked out a way for integrated youth conferences, we found we didn't have more than 20 young black people in the whole diocese."
Like her husband of 58 years, Blossom Marmion was active in promoting better race relations. She started in Birmingham with her Girl Scout work.
Her own mother "was racially [sensitive] before her time. Black ladies who came to our house always came in the front door, even though my father didn't always approve," she says.
Blossom Marmion, who taught for 17 years in Roanoke, also was one of the first Episcopal bishops' wives to take a job outside her home.
"Latin was my specialty, and the schoolroom my natural habitat," she recalls. But bishops' wives were supposed to be kept busy with teas and talks to women's groups, as well as with taking proper care of the diocesan CEO and his children.
She volunteered to teach in the predominantly black Lucy Addison High School when it was integrated in the late 1960s. She had a group of seniors, all black and several very talented, she remembers. With the help of several other educators, she worked to get money for them to go on to college.
When her husband began mandatory retirement at age 72, Blossom Marmion, who also had taught at William Fleming and Patrick Henry high schools, followed him.
Though time has slowed them down somewhat, the Marmions are still active at St. John's Church in Roanoke.
by CNB