"Marlee" Margaret Lee Meriwether

Margaret Lee Meriwether

Marlee Meriwether turned her back on an opportunity to work for the fabled Arabian American Oil Company in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s to do what she loved best – teach and dive headfirst into the history, politics and culture of the Middle East.

As a member of the history faculty at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, Professor Emeritus Margaret Lee Meriwether taught courses on Middle Eastern history, politics and culture. Her academic research resulted in extensive travel in the Middle East and Central Asia for more than 40 years before she retired in 2011.  Her special area of research was family life and customs in the Arab regions of the former Ottoman empire, especially Syria. She is the author of one book and co-author of a second as well as the author of numerous academic papers.

Marlee passed away peacefully at her home in Newark, Ohio, Nov. 18. She was 74.

At Denison, Marlee was a popular teacher, researcher and author on Arabic and Ottoman history, politics and culture from the 17th century to the 21st. At home she was an avid gardener, cook and Lake Erie sailor with her husband and son.

A Front Royal, Va., native, Marlee was born August 29, 1949, to James A. Meriwether and Mary Margaret Dickey. She spent her early years growing up in her hometown in the Shenandoah Valley, frequently hiking with her mother through the nearby Shenandoah National Park. Wanting to expand their children’s horizons, her parents gave them the option of attending private schools. Marlee received a scholarship from the Northfield School for Girls in Northfield, Mass. Northfield, she said, was a transformative experience that opened her eyes to the world. After graduation in 1967, Marlee entered Bryn Mawr College, where she was elected class president and from which she graduated magna cum laude in 1971 with a history degree. Marlee bonded with a group of six other women students at Bryn Mawr. Called the Denbigh 7, for their dormitory, they created a relationship that has lasted a lifetime. The group met summers with children and spouses for decades for week-long vacations.

Marlee earned a doctorate in history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981. At Pennsylvania, her advisor told her to forget Europe and look to the Middle East for academic success. She took the advice with her studies and research. She also learned Arabic, eventually becoming fluent. Marlee was a Fulbright scholar and she studied history and honed her Arabic language skills at the American University in Cairo.

She joined Denison’s faculty in 1981 and was named associate professor in 1988 and full professor in 1995. Besides teaching and research, Marlee was frequently called on to serve the Denison University community. She served as associate director of the Gilpatrick Center for Student Research and Fellowships (2010-2011); and she was director (1996-1997) and interim director (1990-1991) and (2001-2003) of the university’s Honors Program. Her classes included courses on the modern Middle East and upper-level history seminars on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Iraq, and women and family in the Middle East. Marlee’s courses were at a time of continuing regional conflict and were popular with students as well as visiting parents and returning alumni. Granville residents also sat in. Marlee’s knowledge of family life spurred her to develop a popular course she named Plagues and Peoples in which students explored the effects of disease and sanitation on cultures and societies and on people’s daily lives.

Marlee traveled and lived in the Middle East, particularly Syria and Egypt. Her travels also took her to Central Asia and the Muslim areas of China. Marlee’s research interests focused on Ottoman Syria in a 200-year span from the 1600s to the early 1800s. Her book, The Kin Who Count: Family and Society in Ottoman Aleppo, 1770-1840, was published in 1999. It uses Ottoman archives to reconstruct families and explore household life and marriage and inheritance patterns. Her work, which has been translated into Arabic, challenged widely accepted Western views and images of so-called traditional Middle Eastern family life and culture. She has published articles on the women, children and urban history of Aleppo, Syria, one of her favorite cities before its destruction in the recent civil war.

Marlee also was co-editor of a second book -- A Social history of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East.

Marlee was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Granville, where she was a long-time member of the chancel choir. She also served in senior leadership positions.

She is survived by her husband, Michael B. Lafferty, and their son, Patrick Meriwether Lafferty. She is also survived by her brother James (Jay) A. Meriwether, of McLean, Va., and sisters Marie (Rie) Meriwether Godsey, of Lynchburg, Va., and Emily Smith, of Baldwin, Ga.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Middle East Children’s Alliance at mecaforpeace.org or to The Center for New Beginnings Shelter & Services, 60 N. 1st St., Newark, OH 43055.

A memorial service will be held Monday, Nov. 27, at 1 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church of Granville, 110 W. Broadway.

Criss Wagner Hoskinson Funeral Home is honored to care for Marlee and her family. www.HoskinsonFuneral.com