RIP, Florence Mars

Sunday afternoon I tuned into the radio during a longish discussion of John Kenneth Galbraith, which I knew meant only one thing: he’s dead. Sure enough. Then the announcer said, “Also last week, Florence Mars died…”

I hadn’t heard. Cousin Florence of Philadelphia, Miss. Not a blood cousin, since she was my father’s brother’s wife’s daughter by a previous marriage, but in the South that’s cousin enough. She was just a few weeks older than my father, born on New Year’s Day 1923. I defer to professional obits (here and here, among others) for the reasons she was mentioned on public radio -- they have to do with the civil rights murders in 1964, and the book she wrote about their repercussions, Witness in Philadelphia. I’m fairly sure she was braver under those circumstances that I ever would have been.

Sad to say, the last time I visited Florence was all the way back in 1995, shortly after I returned to the United States. I was by myself on that trip, and since then had considered the idea of visiting her and others in Philadelphia with Yuriko and the kids, but we never made it. I did send her postcards from time to time, and occasional photos of children, and she sent me notes and a few letters. In my files I have 11 items of correspondence from her going back 20 years. Her handwriting was a little hard to read, but I was always glad to hear from her. Requiescat in pace.