On this day in 1952 the notorious and courageous firebrand Dr. Marie Equi died of renal disease at the age of 80 in a nursing home outside Portland, Oregon. Two years earlier she had fallen at home and fractured a hip. She never recovered, partly because she refused surgery and thus never benefited from physical therapy.
The next morning a cortege left a funeral home in downtown Portland and proceeded a few blocks to St. Michael the Archangel Church. The church served the city’s Italian and immigrant community of working people who were so important to Equi. Although Equi objected to many Catholic tenets, she believed it was important to die “in the church,” she had told a friend, because it offered “such wonderful hope.”
The next morning a cortege left a funeral home in downtown Portland and proceeded a few blocks to St. Michael the Archangel Church. The church served the city’s Italian and immigrant community of working people who were so important to Equi. Although Equi objected to many Catholic tenets, she believed it was important to die “in the church,” she had told a friend, because it offered “such wonderful hope.”
Equi was eulogized in the newspapers in Portland, and her obituary appeared in the New York Times. Former Oregon Governor Oswald West, a sometime adversary of Equi, remarked upon hearing of her death, “She was a radical but she had a heart as big as a watermelon.”
After more than ten years of research and writing the life story of the remarkable Marie Equi, I am immensely pleased that her full-length biography will be released in two months.
MARIE EQUI, Radical Politics and Outlaw Passion available from the publisher, independent bookstores, and online September 15, 2015.
After more than ten years of research and writing the life story of the remarkable Marie Equi, I am immensely pleased that her full-length biography will be released in two months.
MARIE EQUI, Radical Politics and Outlaw Passion available from the publisher, independent bookstores, and online September 15, 2015.
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