Monie Bebell “couldn’t tell a joke to save her life,” but she could have the most cynical audience “rolling in the aisles,” said her husband, Clifford Bebell.
Monie Bebell, who died in Arvada on Aug. 18 at age 95, was a nationally known educator whose specialty was teaching teachers how to teach.
Her “brilliance,” friends and relatives said, was matched only by her charm. “She was the funniest, most delightful person I ever knew,” said longtime friend Jane Pollock of Lakewood, N.J.
Her ease with individuals or crowds was established early. She began ballet as a child and by age 14 was teaching ballet in small towns around Sioux Falls, S.D., her hometown. Her father, Henry Marquison, a Danish immigrant, drove her to the towns.
At age 16 she went to a ballet camp held by the Pavley Oukrainsky Ballet Co. of Chicago. The company asked her to join in a tour, but she wanted to finish school and said she would join only in an emergency.
It happened. A member of the company died, and Monie Marquison toured the Midwest for a year with the company. She put herself through the University of Chicago by dancing with the Chicago Civic Ballet.
Years later, friends would be entertained when Bebell would suddenly “assume a ballet position” or irrepressibly dance around the room,” said another longtime friend, Eleanor Leinaweaver of Lakewood.
Bebell loved to entertain and created a “nostalgia room” in her home, filled with her own childhood things – a place for her grandchildren to enjoy.
Born Oct. 13, 1909, in Sioux Falls, Mildred Marquison got the nickname Monie because it was the closest thing to Mildred that a childhood friend could pronounce.
Mildred Marquison became a full professor at three schools: University of Denver, New York University and the University of Colorado at Boulder.
She was an editor at Scott Foresman Publishers, helping edit the famous Dick and Jane books for elementary schools. She also wrote an elementary school reading series and founded and directed the McClelland Center for Child Study in Pueblo, now a school for the gifted and talented. Bebell rejuvenated a former orphanage to open her center for disadvantaged children.
She and Clifford Bebell founded Educational Enrichment Services to help students with learning difficulties and the teachers who teach them.
When Bebell worked with disadvantaged children, she figured out ways to involve parents, many of whom had never been involved before and who’d had bad school experiences themselves, Leinaweaver said.
She connected with whatever crowd she addressed, her son Dave Bebell said.
Totally off the cuff, she could tell a true, poignant story that had a funny side to it and pull in an audience, he said.
“She was a very appealing person,” said Eva Hodges Watt, a longtime neighbor.
Monie Marquison married Howard Clancey; their daughter is Julie Grant. Clancey died and Bebell later married Charles G. Hoyt. They later divorced.
On Aug. 23, 1957, she married Clifford Bebell, a professor at DU. They lived in New York, where they both taught, then came back to Pueblo and from there went to Denver. For many years, they lived at Mount Vernon Estates west of Denver, moving to Wheat Ridge in 1997.
A few years ago, the extended Bebell family members decided “to adopt each other,” said Clifford Bebell. The official adoption meant that Clifford and Monie Bebell adopted each others’ children.
He had four, plus a relative’s child whom he had reared, and she had one: Julie Grant of Denver.
“We were already a family,” said Dave Bebell of Castle Rock. “Monie was a source of energy for our family. She coalesced us.”
In addition to her husband, daughter and son, Monie Bebell is survived by three other daughters, Bobbie Girardin of Aurora, Janet Bebell of Fort Collins and Linda Gibas of Salida; and another son, Steven Bebell, of Fort Collins; 13 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-820-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
