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Marianne Reginia Cross Obituary

Marianne Reginia Cross was faculty at Howard High School in Ellicott City, MD. View the obituary, post a memory, or share a photo about Marianne Reginia Cross.

School Role Faculty
Date of Passing May 27, 2002
About Marianne Reginia Cross, a retired English teacher whose passion for literature endeared her to her Howard High School students for over two decades, died Monday of respiratory failure at a hotel in Idaho Falls, Idaho. She was 64 and lived in Columbia.

At the time of her death, Mrs. Cross and her husband were en route to Alaska for a vacation.

Born Marianne Haefeli in Flushing, N.Y., she was raised in Sayville, N.Y. She earned her bachelor’s degree in 1960 from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland in 1960, and a master’s degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art in photography.

Before beginning her teaching career at Howard High School in 1979, Mrs. Cross had taught at Hannah More School in Reisterstown and at Roland Park Junior High School.
“She was a bit of a character, and it was a rite of passage to have Marianne Cross for English; and if you didn’t, you had it easy,” said her son, Sebastian Cross of Canton.

“She was very outspoken. Refreshingly outspoken. She’d tell you what she thought. Never holding back was another of her qualities,” he said.
Niki Fortunato Harris, former chairwoman of the English department at Howard High and a retired State Department of Education official, recalled her as a “very strong teacher who believed in discipline.”

“You kept your mouth closed and did your homework. That’s how you acted in her classroom. She was a great facilitator, and made literature relevant to their lives,” Mrs. Harris said.
Family members said Mrs. Cross would stand in the hallway outside her classroom making sure that her students arrived on time, often admonishing them with the Bette Davis line from All About Eve: “Buckle your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

Another time, after she sensed that a student had deliberately cut detention and reported to football practice, Mrs. Cross went to the practice field in search of the miscreant.

“She found him and went up to the coach. She wasn’t afraid and had the student pulled out of practice and sent to detention. That’s the kind of woman she was,” her son said, laughing.

While Mrs. Cross might have been a strict disciplinarian with a sarcastic wit, it was her deep appreciation of British and American literature and poetry that she wished to impart to her students.

“She simply loved teaching, and came to the classroom prepared. She talked about a novel’s symbolism, depth of the characters and style of writing. She picked a book apart until the students arrived at what we call the ‘Ah-Ah moment,’ when they finally understood what she was talking about,” Mrs. Harris said.

“She loved The Great Gatsby and the poetry of John Donne, Walt Whitman, Tennyson and Lord Byron,” she said.

When Mrs. Cross was struck by throat cancer, which affected her voice, she refused to stop teaching, and used a microphone to conduct her classes.

“She was unstoppable and was our Unsinkable Marianne Cross,” said Leslie A. Topus, a River Hill High School teacher who taught at Howard High during the 1980s.

“What amazed me was that we’d be out for a walk around the lake in Columbia, and former students would run up to her and tell how well they were doing in college because of her teaching. And jokingly, she’d say, ‘And to think you were my worst student,'” said her husband of 39 years, T. Raymond Cross.

“She was a very, very colorful individual. She went to the beat of a different drummer, and everyone wanted to follow along. Not only did she love life, she lived life,” she said.

Mrs. Cross who was voted Howard High’s Teacher of the Year in 1999, retired in 2000.

“Marianne was hesitant to retire, but dragged me along to Senior University at the University of Maryland. She had a very supple mind and studied history, art, current events or whatever she could get her claws into,” Mrs. Harris said.

Mrs. Cross was a longtime communicant of St. John Roman Catholic Church in Columbia, where at Christmastime she enjoyed delivering gifts to the underprivileged.

She was an avid gardener and reader.
Events Services were held yesterday .

In addition to her husband and son, Mrs. Cross is survived by two daughters, Stacie Binnix of Arnold and Alicia Cross of Woodstock; a brother, Richard Haefeli of Remsenburg, N.Y.; four sisters, Eileen Stone of Columbia, Maureen Rose of Spring, Texas, Patty Haefeli of Eagle, Colo., and Gina O’Brien of Folsom, Calif.; and three grandsons.
Marianne Reginia Cross

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