Prof. Marion Hilberry Dies at Age 84

April 10, 2008

April 10, 2008, Greencastle, Ind. - Marion Bailey Hilberry, who was an instructor of English at DePauw University from 1955-56, has died at the age of 84. The Kalamazoo Gazette reports that she passed away Tuesday in that Michigan city and that she "taught English at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., Nazareth College, Kalamazoo College and Western Michigan University." (photo at left from the 1956 Mirage yearbook)

"She was really a remarkable woman," poet Marie Bahlke tells the newspaper. "Outwardly, she was very quiet, but she had a marvelous sense of humor and a really mischievous smile I will never forget -- when things tickled her, she laughed and her dimples showed."

Bahlke was friends with Marion Hilberry and her husband, Conrad, since the couple moved to Kalamazoo from Greencastle in the early 1960s.

Conrad Hilberry, who survives, taught English at DePauw from 1954 to 1962 and is emeritus professor of English at Kalamazoo College. The Gazette notes that he "became a major name in the poetry world," authoring nine books.

Read more at the newspaper's Web site.

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