Marian Bradley Hoge

Hoge—Marian Bradley Hoge, 94, on February 11, 2019, peacefully, in Albuquerque, N.M. Marian was born on December 5, 1924, in Belchertown, Mass., the second child of Mary and Albert E. Hussey. She found a home with the Friends as a child, through her mother’s political action for equal education for African Americans. She graduated from Olney Friends School and completed two years at Guilford College. On a school break in Washington, D.C., she met Alfred Hoge at Friends Meeting of Washington (D.C.). They married in 1944, and in 1948 moved from Bethesda, Md., to Albuquerque, where Al worked at Sandia National Laboratories. When her children started school, she first taught elementary school, and then beginning in 1977, after obtaining a master’s in counseling, she counseled middle school students.

Marian and Al were founding members of Albuquerque Meeting, and she served as clerk of meeting and of Ministry, Education, and First-day School Committees. She helped to found Intermountain Yearly Meeting in the 1970s, bringing together the monthly meetings from four states. She led in establishing a Friends school at the meetinghouse in the 1990s and served on the Friends World Committee for Consultation Triennial Committee for many years.

But her contributions to Friends went beyond these official roles. She was a steady and strong presence in meeting over the years: quiet and thoughtful, but always ready with a laugh or practical perspective. Action-oriented, she said exactly what she thought. With a warm and caring heart, she supported the thoughtful paths that people chose to follow, even those outside the mainstream. The meeting’s children were highly important to her, and they considered her a surrogate grandmother, who always dressed impeccably, wore bright colors (especially purple), and cooked regular (not “Quaker”) food. Desserts were among her most anticipated contributions to potluck. She stated in a short memoir, “This diverse and loving community became the core of [Al’s and my] life,” adding that her “mother’s search for a community in tune with her interest in promoting education with the Black community” had taught her Quaker values.

A lifelong learner and reader, she engaged readily in community, providing the focus of community with meeting activities, a monthly knitting group, and lunch or dinner gatherings with friends and family. She was a good listener, and she thoughtfully advised others in her very practical and common sense way. Fully embracing life, she was independent, loved to travel, and often enticed Al to accompany her on overseas trips.

Her family was very important to her, and she was proud of all of them, displaying on her wall at her last residence a photographic poster her children and grandchildren had made for her ninetieth birthday reunion in Colorado. She deeply appreciated their love, support, and presence in the last years of her and Al’s lives.

An integral part of the life of Albuquerque Meeting for over 70 years, she will be remembered as generous, engaged, resilient, gracious, pragmatic, and loving, with her presence as Friend and friend a gift to all. May the seeds she planted in each of us continue to grow.

Marian was preceded in death by two children, Linn (age seven) and Michael (age five), both of whom died of polio in 1952; by her husband of 68 years, Alfred Hoge, in 2012; and by all of her siblings. She is survived by three children, Patrick Hoge (Brenda), Marta Franklin (Kirby), and Terry Teale; six grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

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