Marie Cecile Javerliat Maddox ’41

Marie Cecile Javerliat Maddox ’41, February 25, 2009, in San Mateo, California. Marie grew up in the Portland French community. She received a BA in political science and economics from Reed, fully intending to seek a position with the State Department and to have a career in Foreign Service. Instead, she chose to marry “a handsome Naval Academy graduate” and a fellow high school and Reed classmate, Richard I. Maddox ’41, who completed his appointment at the U.S. Naval Academy in December 1941. Eight days after they were married, Dick was assigned to a naval destroyer in the Pacific. His further assignments with the navy took Marie—and also their children—to west and east coast duty stations. (He later was a research physicist with Chevron in California and Texas.) Marie completed graduate studies in library science, worked at the Fullerton Junior College library, and was a staff member in various assignments at the College of San Mateo. She continued to enlarge on her interests in political science, economics, international relations, and art history. Her interest in art developed during noon-hour slide lectures in the Eliot Hall chapel, which she described as immensely enriching. She also felt “especially blessed” to have had interactions with a number of Reed faculty members, including Dorothy Johansen ’33 [history 1934–84]. “Little does she realize how may lives she touched and inspired with her dynamic intellect,” Marie remarked. Sharing the news of Marie's death with the college, Dick wrote: “The kindly erudition typical of Reed encouraged Marie to satisfy her curiosity and to seek truth with determination. She was a natural poet, but she seldom revealed that gift. Her four years at Reed gave her a lifetime of satisfaction in being able to appreciate good writing, art, the complexity of human relations, and other components of human society.”

Appeared in Reed magazine: August 2009

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