Friends and former colleagues of L. Marshall Hall Jr., Longwood University associate professor emeritus of history, remember his passion for teaching history and his loyal friendship. Hall passed away at age 82 on the early morning of Wednesday, March 27.
Janet, Hall’s wife of 56 years, his sons Jeffrey and Jared, and his grandsons Jonathan, Benjamin and Nicholas, survive him.
Hall joined the university’s faculty in 1963 and retired in 2000, continuing to teach at the university in an adjunct role for several years following his retirement.
Hall’s roles at Longwood included chair of the Department of History and Political Science (1978-88) and faculty marshal (1965- 83). Hall also received the 1984 Maria Bristow Starke Faculty Excellence Award and the 1991 Student Faculty Recognition Award.
At the reception following Hall’s funeral on Saturday, the Department of History, Political Science and Philosophy presented his family with a poster filled with the signatures of current students, faculty and staff. The poster also featured photos of Hall throughout the years.
From the recollections of his colleagues, friends and former students, it is clear that Hall continues to have quite an impact on the Longwood University community.
Dr. James Munson, associate professor of history, who met Hall when he came to the university in 1992, said, “I looked upon [Hall] as a mentor, somebody that I turned to distinctively as a guide for teaching and dealing with, at that time, college politics and departmental affairs.”
While Munson said he and Hall had different teaching styles, Hall also had many qualities that he tries to emulate.
“I try to have the same kind of professionalism and work ethic that he displayed every day as a professor, Munson said. “He was just a guy with rock solid integrity in the way he went about his business.”
Munson also recalled a visiting student who received Cs in Hall’s classes but ended up getting a job in the computer field after graduating. He was not qualified for the position, but he used study techniques that Hall taught him in order to prepare for the job. He then became irreplaceable at his company. Munson said Hall was impressed that this particular student really had learned something from his classes.
“If you’re doing their job right, they know that they’re supposed to be doing it, and someday that might sink in,” Munson said.
Dr. David Coles, chair of the Department of History, Political Science and Philosophy, met Hall about a year or so before he retired. Hall and his wife took Coles on a tour around the area when he began teaching at Longwood in 1992.
Coles described Hall as “gruff on the outside” with a “heart of gold on the inside.”
Dr. Elizabeth Etheridge, professor emerita of history, remembers Hall fondly from her time at Longwood. “I was on the faculty 26 years, and he was there the entire time,” she said.
Etheridge was the only woman in the history department when she arrived at Longwood, but she said Hall “helped me adjust to what was really kind of a strange situation.”
“History, they told me when I got here, was a man’s field, but Marshall always made me feel welcome,” Etheridge remembered. Etheridge said Hall was always available to offer advice colleagues and students, and “if he said he would do something, he would do it; you could certainly always depend on him.” Hall knew his field, which was primarily southern history, historiography and the Civil War, thoroughly, Etheridge said. She said while he was a popular professor, he made sure his students worked hard. Two of Hall’s students from the class of 1966 came to pay their respects at Hall’s funeral, which was held on Saturday, March 30 at Westview Cemetery. Etheridge said his former students had traveled from the Tidewater region of Virginia.
“I think that is a very significant tribute to his quality as a teacher and as a human being and that after all these years these ladies remembered him,” Etheridge said.
Dr. William Harbour, associate professor of political science and a longtime friend of Hall, also spoke with these two women at the service. He said one of them went on to become a history teacher and hung a picture of Hall in her classroom. Both women have kept in touch with Hall over the years.
Hall was part of the search committee that hired Harbour as a professor in 1967. Once Harbour secured a job at the university, Hall found him and his family a place to live in his very own neighborhood.
“We lived in a small neighborhood just outside of town, and we all gardened together,” Harbour recalled. “Our landlord had a swimming pool, so our kids swam in the pool together ... so I knew him as a neighbor but also as I started here teaching.”
Hall was a dear friend to Harbour as well as the godfather to his youngest son. He was also mentor to Harbour, always available to offer assistance to him and others.
“He always gave advice to junior colleagues on what they should look out for and what they should strive to become, the kind of goals they should set for themselves in the classroom and everything,” Harbour added.
Harbour described Hall as a “fantastic” department chair who excelled at “getting people with different backgrounds and interests and approaches to teaching to work together.”
As a professor, Hall taught Harbour “the importance of trying to convey a message through a story that students can relate to. It wasn’t just a matter of ‘Hey, read this book. Read this article.’” Harbour admired Hall’s ability to memorize long speeches, such as passages from William Shakespeare’s “Henry V,” and recite them with great enthusiasm. Hall could also perform impressions of figures such as John Wayne and General George Patton. Harbour said Hall’s students even took to imitating his walk and mannerisms during his most energetic lectures.
“But it wasn’t done in a way to make fun of him,” Harbour explained. “It was done in a way to pay tribute to this person who brought history alive. It wasn’t just something in a textbook.”
