Marion Z. Snider's Obituary
When Marion Snider graduated from Sweet Briar College in Virginia, she wanted to work for a newspaper.
To win her first job as a writer and reporter, she applied to a hometown newspaper, the St. Petersburg Evening Independent, owned and edited by her father, L. Chauncey Brown.
He turned her down. "He said no, there were enough newspaper people in the family," she recalled in a 1994 interview. He referred not only to himself but to his father, Maj. Lew Brown, who had preceded him as Independent editor and is remembered for his famous offer of a free newspaper on a day when the sun didn't shine.
Not to be denied, she went to one of her father's editors, Archie Dunlap. He hired her. For about a week after she got the job she and her father rode to work together. In silence.
Mrs. Snider, a playwright and biographer of her grandfather and whose girlhood memories stretched back to the city's boom days, died Thursday (March 22, 2007) at Bon Secours Maria Manor. She was 90.
For her entry into journalism, she recalled: "I was paid $12 a week. They were taking out Social Security by then, and I was really upset over that. But I had a wonderful time. I was the only girl in the news room and the youngest of the cub reporters."
Born in the Roser Park area, she spoke fondly of St. Petersburg. "All during my youth, we had a lively, busy downtown," she recalled. "And everybody came out at night to walk on Central Avenue because it was cooler. I loved it here in the summer too, when everyone else went away and there were just a few of us left here."
She cut short her journalism career to marry Robert Alan Zaiser in 1939. A West Point graduate, he flew bombers in World War II and was killed in an airplane crash in 1947. In 1973, she married Robert E. Lee Snider, also a 1938 West Point graduate. They later divorced.
During World War II, Mrs. Snider was an airplane spotter and weather observer and led the Junior American Red Cross.
She was an information director for the South Pinellas County Chapter of the Red Cross and the Christmas Toy Shop.
In the 1960s, she was director the National League of American Pen Women. Other memberships included the Junior League, Little Theatre, Museum of Fine Arts and the Yacht Club.
She was a founding member of St. Thomas Episcopal Church.
Survivors include two sons, Alan Robert Zaiser of St. Petersburg and Kent Ames Zaiser of Tallahassee; and four grandchildren, Edwina Zaiser of Kanagawa, Japan, Ken Alan Zaiser of Wesley Chapel, Michael Keating of Clearwater and John Keating of Sunnyvale, Calif.
The family suggests memorial contributions to All Children's Hospital Foundation, 801 Sixth St. S, St. Petersburg, FL 33701; South Pinellas County Chapter of the American Red Cross, 818 Fourth St. N, St. Petersburg, FL 33701, or Canterbury School of Florida, 1200 Snell Isle Blvd. NE, St. Petersburg, FL 33704.
Memorial Park Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
Information from Times files was used in this obituary.
What’s your fondest memory of Marion?
What’s a lesson you learned from Marion?
Share a story where Marion's kindness touched your heart.
Describe a day with Marion you’ll never forget.
How did Marion make you smile?