Marmian W. T. Royen

QUEEN ANNE - Marmian Williams Tharp Royen, 79, passed away on Monday, Dec. 4, 2006, at the Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., after a 10-month illness.

"Marmie" Tharp Royen was for many years active in national and state politics on behalf of the Republican Party and was also active in Episcopal Church affairs.

She was co-chairman of the Goldwater for President Committee of the State of Maryland in 1964. She was the first woman to serve in such an important capacity. She was an early staff member of then-Governor of California Ronald Reagan"s Washington office before he became president.

She was involved for many years in church work for the Washington National Cathedral and local Episcopal parishes.

Mrs. Royen was born in Akron, Ohio, on Sept. 6, 1927. She was the daughter of Edgar Morgan and Grace Amelia Dick Williams. She was the granddaughter of the late U.S. Senator Charles W. F. Dick of Ohio who was a founding board member of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. He wrote the Dick Militia Act of 1903, which structured the modern-day National Guard.

She graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, with a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1949. She was a member of the Delta Gamma sorority. After graduating she served on the art faculty, teaching painting under Marston Dean Hodgin. She then married Thomas A. Tharp and moved back to Akron when her husband joined the rubber industry. She was a member of the Junior League of Akron and did a great deal of charitable work.

In 1956, she moved with her husband when he was transferred to the Washington, D.C. area and raised three children in Bethesda. She was a leader in local and state conservative Republican political campaigns in various capacities in the 1960s. She was one of the founders and presidents of the Chevy Chase Women"s Republican Club.

Among many other political campaigns, she served as the Montgomery County Campaign Manager in 1962 for the Jim Gleason for U.S. Senate and Frank Small for Governor campaigns. She attended the Republican National Conventions in 1964 and 1968 in official capacities.

Under the auspices of the Junior League, she continued her volunteer work at the National Gallery of Art as Assistant Chairman of the Docent Program for many years. She worked in early television on WETA and WTOP as an on-camera interviewer and producer in the early 1960s.

In the 1970s, Mrs. Royen served on the Board of Directors for Iona House and was an illustrator for Triumph magazine. She was also an accomplished puppeteer and was a delegate to the National Puppeteers of America Conference.

She was remarried in 1973 to W. Jay Royen and in 1978 moved to her historic home "Dayspring" in the town of Queen Anne in Talbot County.

In the early 1980s, Mrs. Royen led a successful effort to revitalize the historic St. Paul"s Episcopal Church in Hillsboro so there were weekly church services again and served on the church governing board. The Bishop of the Eastern Shore, Elliott Sorge, appointed Mrs. Royen to a number of Diocesan committees in the 1980s and 1990s including the Lay Readers Committee. Mrs. Royen was the Eastern Maryland regional chairman of the Washington National Cathedral Association for a decade.

She continued her charitable work as a board member of Samaritan House. In more recent years, she founded the "Butterflies" Bible Study Group and was a lay reader and chalice bearer at Old Wye Parish in Wye Mills.

She was committed to historic preservation and was responsible for saving the 19th century one room schoolhouse in Queen Anne and moving it to the property of her residence. She also maintained a home in Rehoboth Beach, Del. where she liked to draw and paint on the beach.

Mrs. Royen"s favorite pastime was gardening. She won flower show awards for her camellias and roses, and was a member of her church"s Altar Guilds. Her grandfather was the Welsh American concert tenor and early RCA Victor recording star Evan Williams and she enjoyed listening to his recordings, especially of Handel"s Messiah.

She was a devoted reader of Christian literature and an inveterate collector of antiques and old books. Her marriages to Thomas A. Tharp and W. Jay Royen ended in divorce.

Mrs. Royen is survived by her three children: Lisa C. Tharp of Rehoboth, Beach, Del., T.A.D. Tharp of McLean, Va., and Charles C. Tharp of Baltimore. She is also survived by her sister, Adrienne W. Bowman of Great Falls, Va. and her brother, Edgar M. Williams Jr. of Cambridge; two first cousins, six nieces, and one nephew.

A memorial service will be at 11 a.m., Saturday, at the historic Old Wye Parish, Wye Mills, followed by burial in the churchyard.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made in Marmian"s name to the Washington National Cathedral – Bishop"s Garden Fund, 3101 Wisconsin Ave., Washington, D.C. 20016.

Local arrangements are by Moore Funeral Home, P.A., Denton.