last word
Marcia Bass Brody
BY SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
I n “The Brady Bunch,” a young Jan
whines, “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!”,
lamenting how her sister always
seems to get acclaim effortlessly.

The same seems to be true of, not
Marcia Brady, but Marcia Brody,
the 94-year-old whip-smart Jewish
Cheltenham resident.

Brody was a guest on a 1992 episode
of “You Bet Your Life,” hosted by Bill
Cosby, where her deadpan humor and
tales of growing up in the small town of
North, South Carolina, charmed, if not
befuddled, her audience.

Among the other contestants were a
professional storyteller, the youngest
justice of the peace in the United States
and a jazz pianist.

At the time, Brody was a secretary
in Cheltenham. But her bit was a hit:
Her time on the comedy quiz show has
merited tens of thousands of YouTube
views since a clip of it was uploaded
in 2019.

Brody, with a thick drawl that
betrayed her Southern roots, stuck out
from the pack.

One of the contestants turned to
Brody on set before the taping and
asked, “What is your specialty?”
Upon explaining that she was just a
secretary, the other contestant replied,
“Are you the fastest typist in the coun-
try?” Brody said no, she used a com-
puter and not a typewriter.

When the contestant asked if Brody
was the best secretary in the country,
Brody said, straight-faced, “Not really.”
Finally, exasperated, the contestant
asked, “Why are you here?”
“Because I was picked,” Brody
responded. Three decades after her 15 minutes
of fame on “You Bet Your Life,” Brody
still has plenty to say. In April, she
self-published a book of poetry she’s
written over the years.

The book, “Age is Only a Number,”
contains more than 35 poems Brody has
written in years past, mostly inspired
32 JUNE 2, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
by notes she scribbled on sheets of
paper she kept.

“It’s more a book for the elderly,
really,” Brody said, “Things I was expe-
riencing — I slowed down a lot —
changes occurred in my life.”
Brody’s poems are concise and hon-
est, many of them focusing on the
details of becoming older or reflecting
on growing up in a family of seven
children (of whom Brody is the fifth).

Despite, or maybe because of, the seri-
ousness of the topics, Brody approaches
each verse with waggish comedy.

“Itch, Itch, Itch/ Scratch, scratch,
scratch/ That is what happens when
your skin gets old,” Brody writes. “...

This can happen in weather that is hot
or cold. / My son is now scratching/ On
lottery tickets he bought today. / I hope
his scratching continues/ And mine
will go away.”
Growing up in North (which is
about 90 miles southeast of the South
Carolina town of Due West), Brody,
born Marcia Bass, and her family were
the only Jews in town.

The Bass family belonged to an
Orthodox synagogue in Columbia,
South Carolina, the state’s capital, but
traveled 30 miles from their hometown
to attend a Reform Sunday school.

Despite being a minority, Brody
doesn’t remember experiencing
antisemitism growing up, though her
father used to hide Black town resi-
dents in his dry goods store when Ku
Klux Klan members entered town.

Brody’s father, Nathan Bass, was a
Lithuanian immigrant who came to
the U.S. at 16, not knowing how to
read, write or speak English. He and
his cousin were supposed to travel to
Charleston, West Virginia, to work in
the fall and winter, but a mistake at
the train station yielded two tickets to
Charleston, South Carolina. Bass, with
growing success with a dry goods store,
moved to North, a town of 800 people.

North remained a small town. Brody
had nine students in her high school
graduating class, and a small social pool
became even smaller when her parents
put limitations on her dating life.

“The girls in our family had a late social
life because we weren’t allowed to go out
with non-Jewish boys,” Brody said.

That changed, however, when Brody
met her to-be husband in Charlotte,
North Carolina, where she relocated
after graduating from the University of
South Carolina in 1948 to take a secre-
tary position. Brody was volunteering
at a Sunday school and was active at
her synagogue; the executive director,
a Philadelphia native, took an interest
in her, and the two married. Brody
was involved in Haddassah chapters in
both Charlotte and Philadelphia.

Brody moved to Cheltenham with
her husband and daughter and had two
sons after the move. She and her hus-
band divorced after 28 years.

But family remains the most import-
ant thing for Brody; she continues
to send out a family newsletter three
times a year. Brody still works to take
care of her children, paying her bills
and feeding herself three square meals
a day. She insists she’s got plenty to do.

“Life keeps me going,” she said. JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Courtesy of Susan Sonenthal
SHOWS HER SOUTHERN CHARM ON TV, IN BOOK



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