Maurine Holbert Hogaboom of Solomons, MD who died March 29, 2010 at the age of 98, used to say (only a slight exaggeration) that she had seen the twentieth century from beginning to end. She was born in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1912, the daughter of Joseph Eggleston and Ada Viola Davis Holbert.

Soon after, the family moved to an east Texas farm "six miles from the wide place in the road that was Mt. Vernon." She first came to St. Mary's County in 1978, to play Eleanor of Aquitaine in Lion in Winter in Historic St. Mary's City's summer theater. Her career as a performer. which began, it almost seems, as soon as she was born, was marked by success and marred by the trauma of the blacklist that followed the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in the late forties and early fifties. Urged on by her father, who helped her stage plays at the school where he taught, and an encouraging Sunday school teacher, Maurine was well on her way by the time she started school herself. She had already starred in a Western thriller called Daughter of the Desert that allowed her to use a naughty word (albeit spelled out). Her highly acclaimed career in biblical reenactments came to an abrupt end when as David (yes, David) she all too accurately launched a pebble at her unsuspecting opposite playing Goliath. To her surprise he was outraged, and a small fracas ensued. The alarmed teacher thereafter restricted Maurine to tame female roles; Maurine lost interest in Sunday school.

She went to high school in nearby Mt. Vernon, riding her beloved horse Prince the six miles every day. By the time she had finished high school, the Depression loomed, but a generous businessman announced that he wanted to send "that Holbert" who came to school on the horse to college. And so he did--until his untimely death a year after Maurine started college.

Never mind, eventually she got a scholarship to study acting in Dallas at the Southwestern School of the Theatre. Then, by way of a traveling burlesque show, she was in New York. New York! The city and the time were incredibly exciting, but one still needed a job. Maurine had a couple of references; one was a Mr. Leventhal, " who liked burlesque people."

One day, on a long lunch break from the job she had managed to find selling shoes, Maurine wound up her courage and went to call on him. His rather seedy office was already crowded with hopeful actors. Maurine took no notice but went right to the door labeled "Leventhal" and knocked. Astonished actors stared. No one answered. She knocked again, louder. Finally, "the door swung open and a small, round, bald man looking over his glasses said roughly, 'Vell, vhat do you vant?' I stammered but was finally able to say, 'I just came in from the Minsky burlesque circuit to go into the legitimate theatre, and June, the straight woman, suggested I come to see you. My name is Maurine Holbert.' He looked me over, silently, from head to foot, then finally said, 'Vell, kom in.' "I went into a small neat office; the walls were covered with posters of many productions. He sat down beside his desk. A young man, about thirty, was sitting to his left with a script in his hand. Without an introduction Mr. Leventhal asked 'Are you a member of Equity?' [the actors' union]. 'Oh, yes,' I lied. He knew I was lying because one cannot become a member of Equity until one has a professional job in the theatre. "Then, 'Can you play a twelve-year-old?' he asked. "Oh, yes,' I answered immediately. 'I played Beth in Little Women.' The two men looked at each other. The younger one marked a section in the script and passed it over to me, saying, 'The scene is in a girls' school and you and the other girl are both students. Look the scene over and when you are ready, please read it for us. And that's how Maurine got her first role in New York. And a good one it was--one of the girls in Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour. Needless to say, Mr. Leventhal ever after had a place in her heart. Her roles over the years included an outstanding Nora in Henrik Ibsen's The Doll's House, about which Brooks Atkinson said that Maurine "seems to know all about Nora. . . .In an intelligent and spontaneous performance Miss Holbert gives Nora not only charm but stature." She spent a very happy time in the short-lived Federal Theatre, one of the best of Franklin D. Roosevelt's depression recovery programs; she acted in the Greenwich Mews playhouse. These experiences gave her a taste for repertory theater in which members of the company stay together and produce plays together, everyone doing several jobs rather than being pigeonholed in one.

When she came to Southern Maryland, as Eleanor of Acquitane, Maurine Holbert was lodged with General and Mrs. Robert Hogaboom. She admired the general and became fond of his beautiful and frail wife Jean who died that Christmastime in Italy. When she returned to St. Mary's City in 1980 as Mrs. Malaprop in Richard Sheridan's Restoration comedy, The Rivals, she and the general renewed their acquaintance. And, fell in love. Their courtship involved much traveling between New York and St. Mary's. Eventually they married but continued to spend a great deal of time in New York, where Maurine continued her work of acting and teaching young actors. Finally, she settled with her beloved "Bobby" (who died in 1993) at Brentsfield on the bank of the St. Mary's River. She did not, however, give up performing, but generously shared her art through readings and monologues, by participating in many programs sponsored by Historic St. Mary's City and St. Mary's College. As recently as her ninety-fourth birthday (February 2006) she regaled friends and admirers at a gala in her honor with stories about herself, her family and her early years in New York. She was irrepressible, irresistible, unique, and met life in all it ups and downs with exuberance and grace.

A Memorial Service will be held on Wednesday, April 28, 2010 at 3:30 p.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church, 47477 Trinity Church Road, St. Mary's City, MD 20686. Immediately following the service, a celebration with drumming will be held at the Broom Howard Inn.

Arrangements by the Brinsfield Funeral Home, P.A., Leonardtown, MD.