Madeleine Hall, widow of the late U.S. District Judge Sam B. Hall, Jr., for whom the Marshall federal courthouse i s named passed away Tuesday morning at home with her three daughters. Visitation is this evening from 6-8 pm, and funeral services will be tomorrow morning at 11 am at Eastern Hills Church of Christ.
I started to say that Judge and Mrs. Hall were married while I clerked for him, but of course they'd been married a long time before that raising their three daughters and getting Judge through an unsuccessful run for Congress in 1962 (the genesis of the Marshall Division, by the way - interesting story), and a successful one in 1976 (and four more after that), which was followed by his appointment to the federal bench in 1985, where he served until his death in 1994. Her influence was felt at the courthouse on a daily basis when I was a law clerk - as soon as Judge Hall came in we could tell if Mrs. Hall was up when he left the house, because if she wasn't, he would be wearing one of those god-awful powder blue Congressional suits from the '70's with the wide lapels and matching shirts and ties with knots the size of my fist. If she was up, on the other hand, he invariably looked dapper in a sportjacket and slacks with a tastefully patterned tie. (Unless he'd been at the farm - then he was in jeans, a scruffy jacket, and that silly hat, but nobody could ever do anything about that). There's probably an observation in there somewhere about Sam and Madeleine, but I'll leave that for those that knew the Halls better than I.
Mrs. Hall's contributions to the community in Marshall are many, and she will be missed by far more than just her family and close friends. It was always a treat seeing this tiny china doll of a grandmother on the square at lunch and reporting to her on how Jamie and the boys were doing, and I will miss that very much. Anyone that knew her would invariably describe her as a great lady, and there is nothing I can add to that, other than to say that if Jamie and I had ever been blessed with a daughter, I could have asked for no more than to have her grow up to be like Madeleine Hall.
