Here’s a little exercise to try: list the names or descriptions of the people who have influenced your life—even in the slightest way. As best you can, try to list them in their order of importance, and try to list as many as you can remember. The fact that they are remembered suggests that there was an influence.

On the typical list, parents, siblings and spouse(s) will be at the top, followed by mentors, friends, teachers and employers. Even if you don’t write down a single name, merely thinking about such a list can be a daunting experience. Suddenly, out of the shadows, will jump the face of a colleague long forgotten, a neighbor who moved away years ago, or a friend of your father’s who pre-deceased him by decades.

On my list, somewhere between Mrs. Rowell, my seventh and eighth grade language teacher who taught me how to diagram sentences, and Roy Johnson, the first Tennessean to befriend me and who offered instruction on milking a cow, you’d find the name Margery Hargrove. You wouldn’t find it there a week ago. Her name, or so I thought, had been completely forgotten, her role had been adjudged negligible.

She made the list as a result of a Google search. The entry that mentioned her seemed remotely associated to the target of my research, but the name Hargrove began to resonate in my mind, and I clicked the link.

The photograph that popped on the screen was of a woman in her eighties—alert, but weathered by time. I had no trouble peeling away the effects of the years, and confirming that I had known this woman forty-four years ago. At the same time, my eyes were drawn to the headline: MARGERY HARGROVE BELIEVED KILLED IN HOUSE FIRE.

A quick skim of the reprinted newspaper article flashed the essential details: “wheelchair-bound woman …poor health…passerby saw smoke…” I was suddenly beset by an empty feeling as I imagined the horror of such a death.

Next, the web page listed her achievements, conclusive proof that she was the one. For more than three decades, Margery Hargrove dedicated herself to the arts—especially the theatre—in Cookeville, Tennessee, a small college town on the Cumberland Plateau. Yes, she had gone to New York hoping to become an actress and was beginning to have some success there. But when her husband learned that he had leukemia, the family returned to Cookeville. He died a short time later, in 1963.

Soon afterwards, she became director of the Tennessee Tech players. From there her influence and reputation grew. Making the most of the limited resources at her disposal, she became the magneto of the area’s theater community, providing inspiration, guidance, and ample portions of hard work. From a begged basement theater to a borrowed high school auditorium, she put on her productions to appreciative audiences and critical acclaim until Cookeville’s Performing Arts Center was completed in 1979. Finally, her Summer Theater had a home, and it was named in her honor ten years later.

My path paralleled hers for a short time in the early years of her thirty year run. Hargrove’s production of The Diary of Anne Franke had brought Cookeville theater to a new level, in no small part because of the talents of a high school actress, Kaul Fincher, who played the title role. I never saw that performance, but around the same time I had fallen in love with Kaul on a different basis.

I cannot remember the impetus for what happened next. Certainly I was unaware of the clamor in the acting community for Mrs. Hargrove to expand her repertoire of drama performances to include Broadway musicals. But on a late spring afternoon I found myself before “Cookeville’s First Lady of Theater.” To me, however, she was just someone who could say yea or nay to the idea that I might play violin in the production’s pit orchestra. It was not an audition. (I read today that Mrs. Hargrove never believed she had any musical talent, which makes her twenty-five years of consecutive summer musical productions all that more extraordinary.) Rather, I seem to remember she was attempting to evaluate my level of commitment.

So began the evening rehearsals for Finian’s Rainbow, and, as the lone violinist, my excursions up the E string to stratospheric notes I had trouble naming, much less fingering. Lacking a music director in the early weeks, our small orchestra was left to try things on our own and practice our parts individually. Any hopes I had of sharing some time with Kaul were soon deflated. The musicians and the actors practiced far apart with little interaction. Kaul had been cast in a minor role; only a couple of lines would cause her to stand out.

As the performance date approached, the orchestra was joined by a piano playing music director. He brought order out of chaos, re-writing parts of the score and employing his upright to fill in for the many empty chairs in our ensemble. The musical side was coming together.

   A week or two before the performance, the lead female actress broke her leg in an automobile accident. This news stunned the company—but not for long. Whether it was Hargrove’s confidence or the realization that there really wasn’t any other choice, Kaul stepped forward to play the role of Sharon.

      The show opened in the recently completed high school auditorium. At sixteen, the diminutive Sharon looked a bit comical in Woody’s company. The male lead was at least ten years older. But Kaul was much more than adequate when it came to poise, craft, and presence. Margery Hargrove had pulled it off again. She had even cleared enough from ticket sales to pay back the $800 personal loan she had borrowed to rent the scores and scripts.

Even after the final curtain and the cast party, the experience continued as the company chartered a bus to Atlanta to see a performance of Finian’s Rainbow starring Leslie Gore and Soupy Sales.

Kaul continued to perform, under Hargrove and beyond, receiving accolades for her performances. In her word, “heaven” was attained when she became a drama teacher, a profession she had been disinclined to pursue initially. Her tribute to Hargrove on the same website underscores the personal relationship the two shared, and the symbiotic synergy that was the product of that relationship.

Which makes Margery Hargrove’s influence on my life more profound. How rare is that personality that can exert its influence through a third party! At the same time, she impacted a community I came to admire even as I struggled to understand it. The town and its people haunt me today, even as my departure appeared rewarding, an extended return seems improbable, and a few reconciliations seem impossible. Piled on top is the acknowledgement of the character strengths Hargrove endorsed: commitment, hard work, and faith in your fellow citizen.

While Kaul was certainly an exceptional talent, there is nothing to suggest that the air, soil or water of Putnam County could contribute to thespian excellence. Yet Margery Hargrove was able to harvest—year after year, for a quarter of a century—one Broadway revival after another. She did so using whomever presented themselves, even those as meek and possessing as limited talent as I offered so many years ago. Her special talent—to rely with certainty that others will step up to meet any challenge, provided that she went there first—is the essence of a life that dramatically touched mine.

December, 2020: Michael Hill of Bridgewater, Virginia writes:

Over the years I have read your tribute to Margery many times.  For whatever reason, I missed the portion of the post which included a way to contact you.

I attended Tennessee Tech 1963-1965.  I came to know Marge from her next-door neighbor, a colleague and friend of mine in the Biology Department which was housed in Bartoo hall.  I saw Marge many times in those two years and we became close.  I confided in her about everything.  I knew I could come by her house late at night, visit, have a cigarette or two and be on my way.  She would come by to visit me in my apartment on 9th street from time to time.

I was in a few plays, one of which was held at the Wesley Foundation.  It was "Gas Light” I was in a couple of plays on the Tennessee Tech campus. One of them was "Hatful of Rain” while the other one was the part of Satan in “Don Juan in Hell.”  That was probably my best and most involved performance.  I was part of the small crew who visited the Dean of the College at Tenn. Tech to plead that they not fire Marge, who at that time was directing theater under the auspices of the University.  It was up to me to go to her house and give her the bad news. I could see that it really hurt. I am so thankful that Bob Lewis opened the Wesley Foundation as a place for her to direct plays.

I left Cookeville and moved to Knoxville.  We exchanged Christmas cards and I got to visit her a couple of times.  That all changed when I moved north to New Hampshire, got married, got the Ph.D., got a job, had a family and all of that.  I have lived in Virginia since 1972, retired after teaching as a Professor of Biology at Bridgewater College here in the Shenandoah Valley.

The memories of Marge remain strong and always will. She was my friend and teacher and I will always be grateful that she was a part of my life.

Michael Hill

http://www.ajlambert.com/history/stry_mh.pdf

The Margery Hargrove Legacy Fund

c/o The Wesley Foundation

271 East Ninth St.

Cookeville, TN 38501