Margie (Wooten) Lillard

Ancestors

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Biography

Margie was born in Memphis, Shelby County, Tennessee on 8 Feb 1921 to David Anthony and Minnie Eliza (Duffer) Wooten. She married James Anderson Lillard in Memphis on 26 Dec 1949 at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, just as he began his 30+ year career as an officer in the US Army. She passed away in Clarksville, Montgomery County, Tennessee on 12 Dec 2022 at the age of 101. She is survived by seven children, twelve grandchildren, and 6 great-grandchildren, as well as a brother and sister and many other relatives. ^[1]

In her youth, Margie was best known for her dancing, performing in and around Memphis starting at age 9. She graduated from high school at sixteen from Southside High School, and in her yearbook is described as "a mistress of herself though China fell." Shortly after, she began dancing professionally, using the name Margie Marlowe, from her maternal great-grandmother. At one time, she had her own company of dancers, "Margie Marlowe and her Dancing Sweethearts," as well as with the Sally Childs Revue, touring all over the country in vaudeville.

Returning home to Memphis, she worked as a long distance, Marine, rate clerk, and TWX operator, supervisor and instructor with the phone company. Following Pearl Harbor, she volunteered to work as a phone operator in Washington, DC in support of the war effort. She also worked for a time as a home economics teacher at St. Thomas Academy in Memphis.

As an Army wife, she was a choir member and organist at several post chapels, served as vice-president and president of the Catholic Ladies Group, and taught and was director of Catholic religious education at several posts. She was twice a Girl Scout advisor for programs, served as Program Chairman of the Officer's Wives Club, volunteered with Army Community Service, and acted as instructor of Volunteers/Volunteens and Hospital Chair of the Orthopedic Ward for the American Red Cross at the US Army Hospital at Ft Campbell, KY. While at Ft. Campbell, she was the creator and producer of the Feminine View radio show on WABD, and was chapter mother for the Ft. Campbell High School chapter of the Future Homemakers of America.

Her theatrical endeavors were constant throughout her life, providing choreography for, and acting in, productions in Oberammergau and Bad Tolz, Germany, at Ft Campbell, in Honolulu, HI, and in Clarksville, TN. She was also employed in the box office at the Hawaii Community Theater in Honolulu. in 1970, she was selected as the 3rd Army Military Wife of the Year and was a nominee for the national title, just one of the many honors she received during her career as an Army wife.

When James and Margie retired to Clarksville, she continued many of her activities, including community theater, serving on the board of the Friends of the Library, volunteering with the local election commission, and supporting various children's theater programs. She continued performing and dancing with local theaters, such as the Roxy Theater, and did not hang up her dancing shoes until her 72nd year.

At the age of 94, she appeared as the Bird Woman in a production of the musical "Mary Poppins" at the Roxy. Following the opening night show, she was featured in a special fund-raiser for the theater to discuss her theatrical career with patrons. Among other theatrical honors, she was a recipient of the Monte Award, and the Roxy award for Best Actress in a supporting Role in a Musical. In 2016, she received the Full Circle Award, presented annually to a living Tennessean who has had a consequential impact on arts and culture in Montgomery County over many years of direct involvement through innovative work, philanthropy or leadership. The recipient is selected by the Acuff Circle of Excellence Advisory Board, a patron society of the Austin Peay State University Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts. ^{[2] [3]}

She will be interred with her husband at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC.

Sources

1. ↑ Personal knowledge of events by her daughter, Anneliese Lillard Kennedy.
2. ↑ Roxy Regional Theater website; article, dtd 6 Apr 2015; "Marge Lillard Discusses Life in the Theatre at MARY POPPINS Grand Opening Celebration: Saturday, April 25"; http://roxyregionaltheatre.org/marge-lillard-discusses-life-in-the-theatre-at-mary-poppins-grand-opening-celebration-saturday-april-25/
3. ↑ The Leaf Chronicle online, article, dtd 6 June 2016, "Marge Lillard to be recognized by Acuff Circle"; https://www.theleafchronicle.com/story/news/local/2016/06/09/marge-lillard-recognized-acuff-circle/85643126/