Marilyn Meseke (; October 7, 1916 – September 12, 2001) was an American

beauty queen A beauty pageant is a competition that has traditionally focused on judging and ranking the physical attributes of the contestants. Pageants have now evolved to include inner beauty, with criteria covering judging of personality, intelligence, ...

who had the distinction of being twice crowned

Miss Ohio The Miss Ohio Scholarship Program selects the representative for the U.S. state of Ohio to compete for the title of Miss America. The pageant is held annually, during the "Miss Ohio Festival" week, at the historic 1,600 seat Renaissance Theatre ...

(1931 and 1938) and

Miss America Miss America is an annual competition that is open to women from the United States between the ages of 17 and 25. Originating in 1921 as a "bathing beauty revue", the contest is now judged on competitors' talent performances and interviews. As ...

in 1938.

Early life

Meseke was christened, "Mary Ellen Spurrier" in 1917, near

Lima, Ohio Lima ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Ohio, United States. The municipality is located in northwest Ohio along Interstate 75 approximately north of Dayton, southwest of Toledo, and southeast of Fort Wayne, Indiana. ...

. While still an infant, her mother surrendered custody to her maternal grandparents, Charlie and Clara Meseke. Following her adoption, she was renamed Marilyn, given her grandmother's surname of Meseke and reared in the family home on South Prospect Street in

Marion, Ohio Marion is a city in and the county seat of Marion County, Ohio, United States. The municipality is located in north-central Ohio, approximately north of Columbus. The population was 35,999 at the 2020 census, slightly down from 36,837 at the ...

. While still a child, she exhibited a talent for dance and received formal dance instruction throughout her childhood; she later became a

tap dance Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely perf ...

instructor, using the family's living room as her studio.

Pageantry

Meseke entered and won the

competition twice. Her first title was won in 1931 at the age of 14; her young age kept her from the national pageant. Her second title in 1938 qualified her to represent

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

in the national

pageant. The 1938 pageant was the first year that talent became a scoring event in the competition which was serendipitous as Meseke was a talented tap dancer. While her hometown listened to the pageant on the radio, Meseke won the crown on September 10, 1938. The event also marked the first time that movie audiences could see a Miss America being crowned through news reel footage shown the week following the event. Meseke's return to Marion on September 29, 1938 included a night time parade attended by 30,000 well wishers from hometown and surrounding communities.

Personal life

Following the pageant win, Meseke continued to make appearances and teach dance in Marion. She married Stanley Hume, a pilot, in 1943; they were the parents of one son. The couple relocated to

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...

. Following the death of her first husband Stanley Hume, Marilyn Meseke Hume married pilot Benjamin Rogers. Meseke died in Florida on September 12, 2001, aged 84.

Notes

External links

Marilyn Meseke, Ohio Memory Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meseke, Marilyn 1916 births 2001 deaths American adoptees American tap dancers Miss America 1930s delegates Miss America winners American female dancers People from Lima, Ohio People from Marion, Ohio 20th-century American dancers