“It’s such an honor. I can’t believe it,” Mrs. Marshall said in an interview at the Temple College Foundation building. “Everybody is already singing happy birthday to me.”
On Dec. 23 she will actually hit the century mark and a unique life will gain another notch on the wall.
Mrs. Marshall was born in 1908 in Bowie County and went on to become the namesake of the TC performing arts center after helping build the music program from the ground up.
In her mind she says she didn’t do that much. However, her name isn’t on the front of the building for nothing.
“How honored I am and how humbly grateful that I have had an opportunity to maybe lay a few planks in the foundation of the music department at Temple College,” Mrs. Marshall said. “I was back there in the beginning. It’s just unbelievable. The fact that I have lived this long to see the progress that has been made, it’s really very heartwarming.”
The beginning
Mrs. Marshall grew up in what she called “a very musical family.”
“I started studying piano when I was 5 years old,” she said. “And then I went to Mary Hardin-Baylor College and I majored in what was called public school music. I was the first music supervisor Kingsville had in their public schools in 1929.”
The new music supervisor’s duty was to oversee classes at two elementary schools and a high school.
“In the mornings I would take turns going to the elementary schools and I would teach music,” she said. “In the afternoon I would go to the high school and have the choral music and the history of music and things like that.”
The young teacher met her husband Robert Marshall Sr. in Kingsville and followed him to Beeville.
“I did not teach after I left Kingsville,” Mrs. Marshall said. “My husband became principal and superintendent in Beeville and that’s when Bob and Marilyn were born.”
In 1955, the president of Temple (Junior) College called Mrs. Marshall on a Saturday and asked her a simple question, “Mrs. Marshall we are starting classes Monday morning and could you come and help us until we find a teacher?”
“I went out and stayed 18 years,” Mrs. Marshall said with a laugh.
The Temple Junior College years
“I was the music department. I was the only one. I moved chairs, I just did it all,” Mrs. Marshall said. “I had music appreciation, and I had the choir. We entertained Temple and all around here.”
Mrs. Marshall guessed that during a year she and her choirs would perform in at least 100 programs.
“In the spring I would dress my choir up in really pretty uniforms and we would go to all of the towns around here. We were the recruiting arm of the college at that time,” she said. “At the end of each program, I would say, ‘come to Temple Junior College, you’ll be glad you did.’”
Mrs. Marshall said she and Francis Corman were the first cheerleaders of Temple Junior College.
“We’d have meetings of the student body in the old gym and Francis and I would lead yells,” she said.
Also, during that 18 years an instrumental program grew out the music program.
“Now when I think and see what is going on, it’s unbelievable,” she said.
Culture vulture
“Temple has always had some people that were very strong in the arts. I joined the music club soon after I got here because of Nora Lee Wendland,” Mrs. Marshall said. “We would help raise money to buy instruments for the high school and Verterans Administration.”
Mrs. Marshall was also an active member in the orchestral society that is now a part of the Azalee Marshall Cultural Activities Center.
“That really was the main cultural thing at that time,” she said. “We did a lot during that time, but it seems to me in the last 10 years I have seen the interest grow and now it is higher than I have ever seen it.
“When you think of the symphony we have, the jazz band that we have and the musical programs that we have in the public schools, I truly believe that not many towns this size have the cultural advantages that Temple does,” Mrs Marshall said.
“I’ve always heard when industry plans to come to town, one of the questions they ask is “What are the cultural advantages?” We can proudly say we have a very fine cultural atmosphere here.”
Her music
“Music has been my life, and the piano is my instrument,” Mrs. Marshall said.
The pianist can play by ear and said she gained her talent because of her music teacher.
“I truly attribute my abilities to my teacher,” Mrs. Marshall said. “Every time I would go to music class she would have me play a hymn and show me how I could improvise a harmony. Now if you hum it, I can play it.”
Hymns are her greatest love, and Mrs. Marshall will often use her music as a way to express herself.
“I can sit down and take care of almost any feeling I have in music,” she said. “I just start playing and that really gives me peace and a feeling of ease. I can play off any mood.”
“Do you want to know my theme song?” Mrs. Marshall asked. “‘He Keeps Me Singing.’ That’s my theme song. That’s part of my philosophy.”
What she gave
“Music expresses all emotions of life, and I have been blessed to share my music, live and be able to go about doing what I can. Often when I hear a choir, I just itch to get back into the classroom. I would rather direct a choir than do most anything. I love it.”
Mrs. Marshall recounted her 18 years teaching at Temple College as “among the happiest years of my life and perhaps the most rewarding.”
The only other thing that could rise above her music is her “wonderful family,” she said.
Changes
“I don’t know how to express it because I’m not one for technology, but the fact now that you can notate music through a computer. I don’t know how they do it, but they can, she said. “I e-mail but that is all I can do.”
Mrs. Marshall has also seen unprecedented growth in other technologies.
“I drove a Ford Model T all over Bowie County and now I hear now they have an electric car. I’ve seen all that develop,” she said. “When you think about man going to the moon, that’s mind boggling. There’s been so much that I have seen. It’s so gradual, we accept things and we don’t realize the full impact on humanity.”
Role model at 99
“People will tell me I’m their role model, and I tell them they better take a better one than me,” she said. “I’m just grateful I’ve lived to see this day. There are a lot of people who are living older now. 90 isn’t that old. I do think that being 100 and as active as I am is an exception. I can’t explain it.”
Turning 100
“It’s such a wonderful thing,” she said. “I think that’s what keeps me all happy at this time. I’m just excited. I can’t believe that I’m experiencing what I’m experiencing. We just don’t know the plan. Just take it and be grateful.”
Why me?
“It’s very interesting to me and I can’t explain why people are interested in my life,” Mrs. Marshall said. “Why me? I guess that’s just the way it is.”
