Marjorie Anne Stubbs Heaney

DELAND - Marjorie Anne Stubbs Heaney, 95, passed from Earth to the Kingdom of Heaven on Jan. 11, 2011, 20 days from her 96th birthday. She will be remembered at a memorial service at 1 p.m. Friday, Jan. 21, at First Presbyterian Church of DeLand, 724 N. Woodland Blvd. She will be interred in June in the family lot in Groveland, Mass.

Mrs. Heaney was born Jan. 31, 1915, in Bradford, Mass., the youngest child of Walter and Iva Lyle Randall Stubbs. She was the widow of the late Rev. Richard S. Heaney, who was the interim pastor of the old Stetson Baptist Church.

Marjorie, who studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, started singing publicly when she was 12 years old. She sang in several musicals in her hometown of Haverhill, Mass., and in concerts. She memorized all her songs, singing without scores. She was a church soloist for several years.

She and her husband attended Stetson University in the early 1950s, and Marjorie studied voice with professor Kenneth Ballenger. She had the lead role in the operetta The Old Maid and the Thief, which was presented on television in Jacksonville.

After the death of her husband in 1960, she became a member of the Col. Arthur Erwin Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution, and joined many hereditary organizations. Among them were The Daytona Beach Colony of the National Society of New England Women, The Maj. Simon Willard Chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Colonists, and the Ernst D’ Erlach Chapter of the National Huguenot Society of Florida. She was also a member of the National Society Magna Charta Dames, the Francis Cooke Colony of the Florida Society of Mayflower Descendants, the Society of the Friends of St. George, and Descendants of the Knights of the Garter, Windsor Castle, England. She held offices in many hereditary organizations.

After many years of research, Mrs. Heaney published The Descendants of Richard Stubbs 1619-1677 of Hull, Mass., one of her most prized accomplishments. She has left a record for many in the Stubbs families to trace their ancestral roots, and organized several Stubbs family reunions held in Portland, Maine, that drew Stubbs descendants from across the country.

Marjorie had many and varied interests, and was a great reader of history. You could give her a family name, and she would be able to tell you the original settler and from where that person sailed. She also was a lover of the arts, taking painting and pottery classes at Stetson University. She was a volunteer for many years in the genealogy room at the DeLand Area Public Library. She also spent countless hours researching at the Family History Center in DeLand.

She was preceded in death by two sisters, Arlene Britton and Marion Stevens, and one brother, Alan H. Stubbs, all of whom died in DeLand; one niece, Lyle Green of DeLand, and one nephew, Curtis H. Britton Jr. of Haverhill. She is survived by her niece, Jean Scribner of Pensacola; three nephews, Winthrop Stubbs and his wife, Sandy, of Salem, N.H., John Stubbs of New Hampshire, and George H. Green Jr. of Sandown, N.H.; five great-nieces, Deborah Sargent and her husband, Richard, of Pittsburg, N.H., Jean Henderson and her husband, Rodney, of Houlton, Maine, Melanie Ward and her husband, Andrew, of Danville, N.H., Dianna Morales and her husband, Fred, of Pensacola, and Jonye Britton of Haverhill; three great-nephews, Scott Britton and his wife, Paula, of Sandown and Jeffery Britton, and Curtis H. Britton III, both of Massachusetts; several great-great-nieces and great-great-nephews; and one cousin, Phyllis MacPherson of DeLand.

Memorial donations may be made to the Marion Stubbs Stevens Scholarship at Stetson University, 421 N. Woodland Blvd., DeLand, FL 32723. You may share your memories with the family at www.lankfordfuneralhome.com. Lankford was in charge.