A Lifetime, A Legacy: Marian Herbert Hornsby
Marian Hornsby
Stone Harbor lost one of its earliest settlers and lifelong residents when Marian Herbert Hornsby died on Feb. 22. Mrs. Hornsby was 95. Her passing was due in part to COVID-19.
Marian Herbert was born within the shelter of her Herbert grandparents’ home that still stands on 96th Street. Her grandfather, Samuel Herbert, was Stone Harbor’s second mayor.
That warm beginning, coupled with the Herberts’ and the Hornsbys’ dedication to family, faith, community, and country, instilled in Mrs. Hornsby a deep love for Stone Harbor that she expressed proactively at home, at church, and in the community.
Mrs. Hornsby completed her earliest years of education at Stone Harbor Elementary School and graduated from Middle Township High School, where she was a member of the cheerleading squad. Some friends from those days dubbed her “Herbie.”
“Mom was proud of her heritage,” says Herbert Hornsby Jr., her oldest son.
Marian Herbert married Herbert Hornsby in 1945 toward the end of World War II while he was on leave from the U.S. Navy. He also served the community. Her husband, whose first name happened to be the same as her maiden name, was a member of the Stone Harbor Borough Council from 1966 to 1972, and the Stone Harbor Volunteer Fire Company and ambulance corps, even as he ran the Herbert & Hornsby contracting business.
They were married for 62 years before his death in 2007. They left behind three children, two grandchildren, one great-grandchild, and several in-laws.
Cliff Hornsby describes his mother as “a busy lady” during the Hornsby boys’ formative years.
“Mom really recognized each of our strengths and encouraged each of us,” he says before explaining how his fascination with a battery-operated organ in kindergarten led his mother to ensure that he had piano lessons. This resulted in considerable musical accomplishment at an early age.
“Mom and the Lutheran Church encouraged me to do whatever was necessary for my music,” he says. “Mom drove me all over the place. I played at churches, weddings, you name it!”
At one point, he was the organist at both Our Saviour Lutheran Church and St. Paul Catholic Church in Stone Harbor.
Mark Hornsby, the youngest of the three brothers, recalls spending lots of time on the sidelines at sports events or in recital audiences cheering for a sibling. Their mother made that happen, the brothers agree, sometimes “dragging” them to events. “As a family, we were always there for each other,” he says with deep appreciation for that family value.
Says Cliff: “We went to all my brother Herb’s games. In high school [Middle Township], Herb played football, basketball and ran track. By senior year he was the captain of all of them!”
Mark remembers attending his other siblings’ recitals before noting, “Cliff plays all sorts of instruments; he is also a talented watercolor artist.”
As his older brothers went their own ways, Mark played basketball and football after school and enjoyed skateboarding, but he especially loved surfing. His passion for finding the right wave in the more solitary art of surfing remains with him today, says the former U.S. Marine.
Their mother also loved the sea.
Says Cliff: “Mom loved the beach … loved the water … loved Stone Harbor!”
Herb reminisces how they “moved with the tide” when heading seaside as children: “We went to the beach at low tide. At high tide, we went to the Yacht Club basin.”
Mrs. Hornsby can also be counted as an active member of Our Saviour Lutheran Church, where she sang as a soprano in the choir for decades. Cliff mentions how effective his mother and the other choir members were at fundraising for the church. One annual effort was a series of “Music by Candlelight” concerts that choir members performed in the summertime. “They raised a ton of money,” he says. “They were a very active choir.”
Church member Diane Young also recollects how Mrs. Hornsby and her Women for Service Club sisters created lovely ornaments called Chrismons to decorate Our Saviour’s Christmas tree.
Creativity came naturally to Mrs. Hornsby. By all of her sons’ accounts, she was a talented knitter and sewer along with her sister, Betty Ingraham. Mark says that as boys, they were kept warm with handknit sweaters, socks and scarves from their mother or their aunt.
“They could sit and watch TV while conversing and knitting without looking” at their needlework, Herb says. His mother’s knitted Christmas stockings, red with touches of white and illustrated with seasonal figures like Santa and personalized with name and birthdate, were especially beautiful, he adds.
Cliff remembers witnessing how his mother and Aunt Betty, who lived in Philadelphia, went into department stores like Strawbridge & Clothier, Lit Brothers and Gimbels, armed with measuring tapes in search of fashionable dresses that they carefully studied and recreated at home. “Aunt Betty would draw those dresses right down to the buttons!” he says. Cliff also recalls a suit coat and an outerwear coat that his mother made for him. “I never had a store-bought sweater until I bought one sometime in my college years,” he adds.
Mrs. Hornsby also actively volunteered as a member of the Ladies Auxiliary at Stephen C. Ludlam American Legion Post 331. His mother made many a dish for the monthly covered-dish family socials there, says Herb, before reminiscing about how the children went outside and ran all over the dunes while their parents socialized inside the building.
Both Herb and Mark talk about how their parents marched with the American Legion Post in the annual Memorial Day parade.
Mark further notes specific preparations made by “Mom and the troops” for the Memorial Day ceremonials. Weeks before the holiday, Ladies Auxiliary members created small, Styrofoam floats that they decorated with poppies in various designs. Bright red Memorial Day poppy blossoms have long symbolized the sacrifices made by soldiers who died during World War II thanks to the poem “In Flanders Fields,” by Lt. Col. John McCrae. McCrae was a brigade surgeon who served with the troops on Flanders Field in Belgium. As part of the local holiday tradition, the poppy-filled floats were launched into the ocean on 96th Street.
As her children grew older, Mrs. Hornsby joined the workforce outside of her home, her sons say. She first worked part-time at the Gatehouse Flower Shop in Cape May Court House. Mrs. Hornsby next took a full-time job at the Cape May County Clerk’s Office. At the time of her retirement, Mrs. Hornsby was a senior microfilm operator, recording deeds and mortgages.
During her widowhood, Mrs. Hornsby especially enjoyed taking an annual cruise with Cliff. “Every place that a cruise ship sailed in the Caribbean, we went,” he says.
Mrs. Hornsby requested that when she died, her ashes be released over the ocean that so enhanced the rhythm to her life on Seven Mile Beach from the time of her birth. That way, Herb explains, she would join her U.S. Navy veteran husband who was similarly “buried at sea” one rainy, foggy day, courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard.
Because COVID contributed to Mrs. Hornsby’s death, and COVID-spread concerns were rising at the time, her sons chose not to have a church service for Mrs. Hornsby. Instead, the Hornsby brothers privately honored Mom’s wish to become one with the sea in its tranquility.
