Marjorie Marie Coxe and James W. Becket

MARJORIE MARIE COXE, daughter of HATTIE JANE COLTON and CLARENCE HERBERT COXE, was born January 1, 1928 in Chamberlain, Brule, South Dakota,¹⁶⁸ and died November 24, 2006 in Davis, Yolo, California.¹⁶⁸

She married JAMES W. BECKET on December 22, 1956 in Chico, Butte, California.^{6951, 6986}

• Descendant Reports
  • Samuel Stanley Descendant Report (Ancestor of Marjorie M. Coxe)
  • Joseph Baker Descendant Report (Ancestor of Marjorie M. Coxe)
  • William Sutherland Descendant Report (Ancestor of Marjorie M. Coxe)

• Marjorie Marie Coxe was a member of the Woodland United Methodist Church, Yolo County, California. ¹⁶⁸

Aberdeen American-News, December 3, 1956⁶⁹⁸⁶

Miss Coxe Will Marry This Month

WEBSTER — Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Coxe of Eugene, Ore., announce the engagement of their daughter Marjorie, to James W. Becket, son of Mr. and Mrs. R. N. Becket of Woodland, Calif.

Miss Coxe, formerly from Webster, graduated from Webster High School and received a degree from Northern State Teachers College in Aberdeen. She spent six years with the Department of State and was assigned to the American Consulate General in Munich, Germany, and the American Embassy in London, England, where she was secretary to the American Ambassador. Mss Coxe now lives in Chico, Calif., where she formerly was employed by the Coughlin Travel Service.

Mr. Becket graduated from high school in Woodland and is a graduate of the University of California at Davis. He served with the U.S. Air Force in the United States and in the Pacific. Mr. Becket is presently teaching agriculture at Biggs Union High School in Biggs, Calif.

The wedding will take place in Chico, Dec. 22.

Aberdeen American-News, August 9, 1954⁶⁹⁸⁵

Webster Girl Takes Leave From Duties As Diplomat's Secretary

WEBSTER — A trim titian-haired South Dakota girl with a yen for travel has achieved a position in one of America's key embassies which permits her to rub elbows with many of the prominent figures in world affairs today.

Now spending a summer at her parents' cottage beside tranquil Pickerel Lake, she is Marjorie Coxe, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Coxe, Webster, and secretary to the American ambassador to Britain, Winthrop W. Aldrich.

The poised, young ambassadorial secretary has driven her little French Renault auto through half-a-dozen European countries and has toured more than a dozen. She has been with the State Department since 1949 and on duty in foreign countries much of that time.

MEETS CHURCHILL

Her work in the London embassy includes taking dictation from banker-diplomat Aldrich; making appointments for him ("with his permission,") she hastily added; opening the ambassador's mail, and processing American applications to attend court functions.

Meeting Prime Minister Winston Churchill, she recalled, was one of the highlights of her 2 1/2 year tour of duty in London. This occurred just before Winston took up his duties as prime minister again after his severe illness. Ambassador Aldrich lunched with Churchill, and Miss Coxe, accompanied by another embassy employe, went to pick up the ambassador. Churchill, showing few indications of having been ill, as she recalls it, came out on the steps with Aldrich, and the ambassador introduced them.

She recalls seeing the McCarthy aides, G. David Schirie and Roy M. Cohn when they were on the European tour investigating American governmental activities in Europe.

When Adlai Stevenson, Democratic nominee for president in 1952, stopped in London on his world tour, Miss Coxe took notes of his press conference for the embassy records.

Still recalled by Northern State Teachers College staff members as a charming red-headed student, the Webster High School alumna was graduated from NSTC in 1949 with a major in business administration.

Deciding that the foreign service offered a good chance to satisfy that yen for travel, she had applied for a position in March, 1949, preceding her graduation. She was called to Washington, D.C., in August, studied German in the Foreign Service Institute for a short period and was sent to the American Consulate-General in Munich in October as a clerk.

ALDRICH'S SECRETARY

She returned to America on leave two years later and went to the London embassy in January, 1952.

In the spring of 1953 she was assigned to work in the ambassador's office as secretary of two of his assistants. Since March of this year she has been personal secretary to the distinguished looking, white-haired ambassador who is a widely known New York banker.

In London she lives by herself in a three-room, $85 a month apartment about two miles from the embassy.

Partly because they are usually better dressed, the lissome girl believes, you can easily distinguish American from Europeans in Europe. Americans have more money and can buy better quality clothing, she points out, American women, she observed devote more attention to accessories, their hair and general grooming than do most of their European sisters.

COMPARES MEN

The exception to this latter would be for the few French women who are exceptionally "sharp and chic."

"I'm always thrilled when I see a well-dressed American man in Europe," she smiled, when asked to compare European men with Americans. Europeans, especially Englishmen she assured the American-News reporter, generally pay little attention to such details as the creases in their trousers.

German men she said, are more polite "in a way" than Americans, but their habit of not opening doors for women and not walking on the outside can be disconcerting to an American girl. She had dated Germans, while in Munich; but never Englishmen since being in London, she said in reply to a query. She pointed out that there are more American men in London.

She spent a weekend, as a guest of the parents of a German doctor, a friend of hers. The father was also a doctor who had been forced to join the Nazi party, whose home had been bombed by the Allies and who had also been stigmatized by the conquerors for Nazi affiliations. The family, then living in a small cottage beside a lake in southern Germany, did not seem to be bitter against the American occupiers, she said. The only thing apparently resented was the fact that the son, a German veteran, who was emigrating to America, might be drafted into the American Army.

DRIVES RENAULT

Pointing up the differences in financial standards of the two countries, she said her German doctor friend was making $12 (cq) a month in the hospital where he was working. After a period of years he might expect to make about $100 monthly.

Her traveling, where possible, has been in a four-cylinder, rear-engined Renault which makes about 50 miles to the gallon. English and continental filling station attendants, she remembered wryly, will wash the windshield — if you ask them to do so. The same stimulus is required to get the oil level checked.

Miss Coxe has two sisters, one of whom is Mrs. Harmon Baukol of Webster. The other, Mrs. Robert Risch, lives a LeMars, Iowa. A brother, Keith E. Coxe, is at Custer.

She will leave for the East Coast on Aug. 15 and will spend some time there before flying back to London.

Daily Democrat, December 1, 2006¹⁶⁸

Marjorie Marie (Coxe) Becket

Jan. 1, 1928 - Nov. 24, 2006

Marjorie Marie (Coxe) Becket died Friday, Nov. 24, 2006 at the home she shared with her husband, Jim Becket, in Davis following a brief but intense battle with a failing liver. She was 78 years old.

Mrs. Becket was born on Jan. 1, 1928 in Chamberlain, S.D. She lived in Davis for more than 40 years. Mrs. Becket was a member of the Woodland United Methodist Church where she served on several committees, including the Teaching Learning Committee and the 75th Anniversary Celebration Committee. In addition she was the treasurer of the United Methodist Women.

Mrs. Becket is survived by her husband, Jim, of Davis; daughter, Kathleen, of Los Angeles; son, Mark and his wife Maria, of Grants Pass, Ore. and sister-in-law Jean Becket of Davis. She is also survived by numerous sons and daughters of her South Dakota siblings, who preceded her in death.

Services: A memorial service for Mrs. Becket will be held at the Woodland United Methodist Church at 2 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 2. Nautilus Society of Sacramento is assisting the family with the arrangements. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to either the Memorial Fund of the Woodland Methodist Church, 212 Second St., Woodland; or Sutter Hospice, 2800 L St., Sacramento, 95816.