Jessie Marshall

Jessie Marshall (nee Smith) was born on July 2, 1920, in Fort Myers, Florida to Geneva Smith and Samuel Marshall Smith. She had an older brother, Glenn; an older sister, Genevieve; and a younger brother, Marshall, all of whom passed before her. When Jessie was five years old, her father died suddenly, and an unfortunate set of circumstances eventually resulted in the siblings being sent to different relatives to be raised. At the age of nine Jessie was sent to live in the mountains of western North Carolina with her maternal grandparents while her mother relocated to Pennsylvania to find work. Jessie had never met her grandparents, and had never been to the mountains. She never forgot that first journey into the beautiful but remote reaches of the Roan Valley, where she saw women working in the fields in long skirts and bonnets. The year would have been around 1929, but to Jessie it seemed as though she was traveling into the previous century. Life in the mountains was spartan; there was no running water or electricity, and the one-room schoolhouse was a long walk away, but Jessie adapted and thrived.

When Jessie was 14, her mother Geneva relocated to Washington, DC, and took Jessie with her. There Geneva worked as a waitress at Union Station and ran a rooming house on Capitol Hill, where she and Jessie also lived. It was Jessie’s job to clean the rooms and rent them out while her mother was at work. Jessie had many stories of the interesting people who stayed at the rooming house, including a small delegation of Native Americans who came to DC, perhaps to influence legislation being considered in Congress. When Jessie answered their knock at the rooming-house door, she was surprised to see the future tenants standing on the doorstep in full traditional dress. One roomer whom she befriended was an older gentleman nicknamed “Shappy.” She really enjoyed chatting with him and beating him at card games. One day he said, “Jessie, you will always be young.” It proved true. Countless doctors, nurses, and others who looked at her charts would ask if she had filled in her birthdate correctly—they simply couldn’t believe she was as old as her birthdate indicated. Their reaction, of course, never failed to please her!

One night in 1939, Jessie went to DC’s Red Circle nightclub with her friend Brownie (who, as it turns out, became the Hope Diamond heiress years later). There she spied a handsome young musician performing on guitar. When he took a break and saw Jessie perusing the juke box, he delivered his line: “You look awful cute tonight!” Two years later, Jessie married the guitar player, longtime DC-area musician Ray Marshall. They eventually settled in Fairfax, VA, where Jessie created a loving home for their family of three children: Linda Marshall Clayborne, Gary Marshall, and Jody Marshall. Jessie also worked for almost twenty years as the lunchtime hostess at Jermantown (now Providence) Elementary School in Fairfax. There she touched the lives of countless children, many of whom remembered her kindness years later. In addition to her three children, Jessie is survived by two grandchildren, Kristin and Ashley (another grandchild, Rachel Marshall, passed away in 2010); three great-grandchildren, Elinor, Noah, and Tyler; her loving grand-daughter-in-law, Marita; and Jefri and Bill, her two devoted sons-in-law.

Jessie will long be remembered for her kindness, sweet disposition, bright spirit, and timeless beauty. A memorial service for Jessie will be held in the future. She would be honored by donations to charities that work to improve the lives of children, such as St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.