Marjorie Redman Helped Better The Environment, Her Community

Marjorie Redman, born in 1917 to a wealthy New York family, as a child knew Harry Houdini. Her father was the escape artist's accountant and her uncle his attorney.

Perhaps that's why, ever since, she loved liberating words from cryptograms and helping worthy causes escape bureaucratic boxes.

Mrs. Redman, who died of cancer Feb. 17, is best known as an original member of the Puget Sound Water Quality Authority, established to halt pollution and clean up the Sound.

But Mrs. Redman, an avid tennis player who "cajoled" and "teased" to get her way, also helped create the Seattle Tennis Center on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South and led an effort to halt a street project that would have eliminated a park on Hunter Boulevard South.

"She taught me that issues matter, that you really must get involved," said her daughter, Margo Bowden of New York City.

"Mother was always, always involved. Not just in superficial things. She did her research and was very clear about issues. That's what drew people to her."

Brought up in a world of privilege, with servants and East Coast culture, Mrs. Redman nevertheless as a young woman developed a civic conscience.

This 1938 graduate of Smith College campaigned for New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, went to Washington at the height of the New Deal and joined the League of Women Shoppers consumer group and the Friends of the Land environmental group.

She also worked for a low-rent housing agency and during World War II, served the Navy as a volunteer cryptographer, fueling a lifelong fascination with word puzzles.

"She married in 1940 and in 1946 followed my Dad from the cultured East to Seattle, which was a cow town," said her daughter. "Yet she adapted beautifully. She worked as hard as anyone to make this a good city and a good region.

"In fact when Easterners came, she would dress them in bibs and serve cioppino with French bread and just a fork to open the shellfish. I think she tried to show them the freedom offered in the West."

In Seattle, the "cheerful, upbeat" Mrs. Redman worked for the Municipal League, the League of Women Voters, Forward Thrust, PTA groups, the Mount Baker Community Club and the Democratic Party.

All the while she was rearing children, finding time for civic pursuits rather than fitting children into a busy schedule, said her son Eric Redman of Seattle.

Two decades ago she and her husband made a Hood Canal beach-bluff retreat into a full-time home. The sea life there inspired her to protect the marine environment.

In 1985, Mrs. Redman, known as "Marj," accepted Gov. Booth Gardner's appointment to the Puget Sound Water Quality Authority. She served until illness forced her to resign in 1992.

"She never advanced herself in any way," said her husband, Mac Redman of Seattle. "But once she told the governor she was as well qualified as anybody to direct the Water Quality Authority."

Recently, she told her son she had no regrets, adding, "There's nothing I wanted to do that I didn't do."

Other survivors include her son Michael, of Olympia, and five grandchildren. Services will be at 10 a.m. tomorrow at the Women's University Club, 1105 Sixth Ave. Remembrances may be made to the Group Health Foundation, 521 Wall St., Seattle, WA 98121.