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Harry Marley

Birth
Syracuse, Onondaga County, New York, USA
Death
21 Nov 1989 (aged 86)
Syracuse, Onondaga County, New York, USA
Burial
Syracuse, Onondaga County, New York, USA Add to Map
Memorial ID
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Syracuse Herald-Journal, Tuesday, November 21, 1989 p. A1 & A8

Harry Marley, 86, Dies: He was influential in politics, sports, business, religion

Harry Marley, a Syracuse business executive and lawyer who influenced the course of business, politics, religion and sports in Onondaga County, died today at Crouse Irving Memorial Hospital after a long illness. He was 86.
Mr. Marley's expertise and interests extended far beyond his successful metal-recycling business, propelling him into the administrations of presidents Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson and many civic endeavors.
In a 1979 interview, Mr. Marley said, "If you want to be successful, you have to work hard, not only for the accumulation of wealth, but to be able to do the right thing, be interested in things that are good for everyone."
He lived that philosophy by working for his community, his university, his country and his industry.
"Syracuse lost one of its best friend's today," said Stephen Rogers, president of The Syracuse Newspapers.
Besides working closely with Mr. Marley on many civic endeavors, Mr. Rogers fished often near Mr. Marley's summer home on Cherry Island across from Alexandria Bay in the Thousand Islands.
"He was probably one of the best fishermen locally, although on some of his trips, you wondered whether you went fishing or eating," Rogers said. "He would bring out the baloney, rye bread, sausage, cheese and a variety of drinks just before the shore dinner."
Eleanor Ludwig, director of alumni programs for Syracuse University, also remembered Mr. Marley's love of fishing.
A frequent guest at Cherry Island, she recalled how much he enjoyed entertaining. "I remember Harry with great fondness. He was a wonderful person and a great friend to all of us at the university," she said.
Mr. Marley - known as "Hecky" among his friends - once turned down a chance to run for mayor of Syracuse. But he served without pay for eight years on the Syracuse Board of Education, including two years as its president.
He also took on other unpaid jobs - including 2 1/2 months with a special U.S. mission to the Far East, including Japan and Korea, at the request of President Truman. The mission's job was to locate and select suitable scrap metal, including battlefield metal, for use in America's hungry steel furnaces, at a time vital scrap was in short supply.
He also served as a member of President Johnson's National Advisory Committee on Highway Beautification.
At his death, Mr. Marley was vice president of Abe Cooper Watertown Corp. and chairman of the board of Marley's, the Syracuse division of the Cooper firm which specialized in scrap processing and brokering scrap metals. Assets of an office equipment company he started were sold more than a dozen years ago.
Mr. Marley served as president and director of the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel, the national organization representing more than 1,100 metal recycling companies.
On Jan. 20, 1966, Mr. Marley was commended on the floor of Congress. Although he later was to be campaign manager for a Republican, it was a Democrat who honored him there.
Former Rep. James M. Hanley of Syracuse cited Mr. Marley for his "personal dedication ... to making America a better place in which to live" and for having "contributed greatly to America's store of precious metals."
As a scrap processor and president of the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel, Mr. Marley was ahead of his time in ecological concern and earned Hanley's praise for his work in that area.

MR. MARLEY was born Jan. 11, 1903. He learned about work early in life by helping his father, Meyer, who operated a tailor shop - "a nice little business" - in the West End of Syracuse. When he was only 12, he got a summer job as office boy at Brown-Lipe-Chapin, a local General Motors plant.
"That job taught me to work, and I worked every summer while going to grammar school, high school and college," he once said in an interview.
Even though he was a college graduate and a lawyer, Mr. Marley remained interested in technical work and was later instrumental in establishing a technical school at Central Technical High School.
His interest in technical education began during his high school years when he had a job In a box factory."
"I was no mechanical genius," he said.
"But I learned that many men are not good students, but they are tremendously good with their hands. And many executives told me that what they need are men who are good with their hands, but who can also fill out an application form and can be instructed what to do."
Mr. Marley, who resided at 121 Crawford Ave., was fond of telling about the summer he was a freshman at Syracuse University. He talked owners of the Loew Building, which was then being built, into letting him put a refreshment stand at the site in downtown Syracuse.
"It turned out to be one of the hottest summers in Syracuse's history, and I made about $1,800 during that summer," he said.

MR. MARLEY WAS educated at Syracuse schools and SU. At Central High School, he had played center on the football team, and was selected as All-State center in His senior year by the late Lawrence Skiddy, then Herald-Journal sports editor.
He was too small to play football in college, and his studies made it "inadvisable," he said. But his love of athletics was still strong, so he became manager of the SU basketball team. Later, he served 25 years as a member of the SU Administrative Board of Athletics and as a member, president and director of the Varsity Club.
Joe Szombathy, associate director of athletics and executive director of the Orange Pack, recalled Mr. Marley's support of SU athletics.
"He was instrumental in the Manley Field House building campaign, Carrier Dome and other building projects. He was also a mainstay, serving on the board of directors for dozens of years, of the Varsity Club," Szombathy said. "He had a wonderful life, a wonderful family and hundreds and hundreds of friends, not only locally but throughout the state and country."
In 1968, Mr. Marley was recognized by SU as a Letterman of Distinction, joining other former letter winners who are successful in their chosen careers. The previous year, he received SU's Alumni Award.
While Mr. Marley was still at Syracuse University, he and a close friend, all-time All-American football end and basketball guard Vic Hanson, organized high school basketball in Syracuse.
In 1946, Mr. Marley was among the community leaders who helped to bring the Syracuse Nationals professional basketball team to Syracuse.
He was a director of the Syracuse Chiefs baseball club from 1961 to 1978.
When he was graduated from the SU College of Law in 1927, he joined the Alderman law firm in Syracuse.

IN 1931, HE married the former Lillian Cooper of Watertown, whom he met at SU.
Responding to the urgings of his wife and her father, Abe Cooper, Mr. Marley left the law firm in 1936 to join the Cooper business. He became instrumental in helping the company grow, particularly during World War II.
In 1940, he won a major contract for the manufacture of 105mm high-explosive shells from the Rochester Ordnance District. The contract for Bagley & Sewall Co., which was owned by Mr. Marley's father-in-law, put the Cooper firm into the defense business.
The Watertown company never had produced shells before. Mr. Marley sought advice from Syracuse manufacturing executives, then hired 12 engineers from Wisconsin who had been at a company making a different type of cannon ammunition no longer being used.
Cooper reorganized operations to produce shells, and by the end of the war was turning out 135,000 shells a month.
In 1951, Mr. Marley was a member of a four-person U.S. commission, representing large steel corporations in the United States, who served as consultants for a government-sponsored mission of the Department of the Army, to investigate the steel and metal industries in Japan and Korea. He made a world tour for the U-S. government as a consultant on behalf of this commission, spending several months in the Far East.

ACTIVE IN Republican politics, he was Central New York campaign manager for Sen. Jacob K. Javits.
Mr. Marley was Javits' representative in Central New York for interviewing candidates for the military academies.
He was a member of the Reoublican Judicial Council for selection of state Supreme Court judges.
In June 1957, a few weeks after he assumed the school board presidency, Mr. Marley was offered the nomination for mayor of Syracuse on the Republican ticket. He declined, saying he preferred to remain active in the school system and devote his time to the demands of his business.
When he retired from the city school board in 1959, after serving eight years, he received the Highest Honor Award for distinguished service as president.
"Harry Marley was a great friend," said Tracy Ferguson, a lawyer in Syracuse. "I will miss him very much as I have these past few years when he was so confined in the hospital.
"He was a great father, a caring husband. He was a great citizen, and a devoted friend and tireless worker for Syracuse University. He took great pride in being a past president of the board of education and he was a confidant of political leaders and gave his advice when it was sought in all important affairs of state in this community.
"His children and grandchildren can be proud of their father and grandfather. His contribution to all affairs in this community will be well remembered, not alone by his close friends but by those in the community, so many of whom he benefited."
Among the beneficiaries will be Crouse Irving Memorial Hospital. Next year, the hospital will start construction on a $13 million education center. A lead gift of $1 million for the education center was announced Oct. 21, 1988, by the Marley family. The gift comes from Mr. and Mrs. Marley, the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, and members of the Marley family.
The building will be named the Harry and Lillian Marley Education Center. It will house expanded program's for the hospital's nursing school, advanced programs for nurses and physicians, and community service and health education programs for the public.

MR. MARLEY SERVED as a member of the state Small Business Administration Advisory Council. Later, he was a director of the Syracuse Metropolitan Development Association.
Irwin L. Davis, executive vice president of the Metropolitan Development Association, said that besides their professional relationship, he was a longtime personal friend and fishing companion of Mr. Marley's.
Davis recalled his friend today, saying, "Harry Marley signified business leadership at its finest in our community. He cared for Syracuse and represented it wherever he traveled around the world.
"On behalf of the business leadership of Central New York, Harry Marley's death is truly a void for this community."

MR. MARLEY ASSISTED former Auburn mayor Paul Lattimore and others in starting Auburn Steel, now a successful steel mill.
Mr. Marley served in a variety of ways on many community organizations.
For Syracuse University, he served on the advisory committees to the University Alumni Capital, Initial Gifts Fund, and Field House Fund.
"Harry Marley was a lifelong friend of Syracuse University. He was a loyal alumnus, a favorite of young people and he was supportive of a wide list of activities ranging from the academic to athletics. He will be missed," Chancellor Melvin Eggers said today.
He was one of the founders and first trustees of WCNY-TV public television station.
"Harry Marley was one of the small group of community leaders who worked tirelessly in the early and mid-1960s to launch public broadcasting in Central New York," said Richard W. Russell, president and general manager of WCNY-TV and FM. "Here, as with every organization to which he committed himself, his foresight, his judgment and his dedication made a critical difference. Our thoughts are with his family at this time of great loss."
Mr. Marley was a guardian member of the Boy Scouts of America in 1980.
He served on the state Commission for the Study of Juvenile Delinquency.
He was president of Brighton Towers Senior Citizen subsidized housing.

Other organizations of which Mr. Marley was a member are the Liederkranz, Elks Club, Masons, B'nai B'rith and American Jewish Committee. He was a member of Cavalry Club and Lafayette Country Club.
Mr. Marley was a member of Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity, the Onondaga County Bar Foundation, the Onondaga County Bar Association, New York State Bar Association and the American Bar Association.
He was a former trustee of Temple Society of Concord and a member of Temple Adath Yeshurun.
IN 1978, Mr. Marley and Syracuse labor leader Edward Funda were honored for their work with the Histadrut Scholarship Fund, an organization which helps finance the education of youngsters in Israel for vocational jobs.
Surviving, besides his wife, are two daughters, Susan Marley Newhouse of New York City, whose husband Donald E. Newhouse is one of the owners of The Syracuse Newspapers; and Nanci Marley Bronsteen of New York City, whose husband Robert W. Bronsteen is president of Edward Bronsteen CPA Co.
Also surviving are five grandchildren, Steven, Michael and Kathy Newhouse and John and Elizabeth Marley Bronsteen.
Services will be at 12:30 p.m. Sunday at Temple Adath Yeshurun, 450 Kimber Road. Burial will be in Adath Yeshurun Cemetery.
Friends may call from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Sunday at the temple. Birnbaum Funeral Chapel, 1909 E. Fayette St., has arrangements.
Syracuse Herald-Journal, Tuesday, November 21, 1989 p. A1 & A8

Harry Marley, 86, Dies: He was influential in politics, sports, business, religion

Harry Marley, a Syracuse business executive and lawyer who influenced the course of business, politics, religion and sports in Onondaga County, died today at Crouse Irving Memorial Hospital after a long illness. He was 86.
Mr. Marley's expertise and interests extended far beyond his successful metal-recycling business, propelling him into the administrations of presidents Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson and many civic endeavors.
In a 1979 interview, Mr. Marley said, "If you want to be successful, you have to work hard, not only for the accumulation of wealth, but to be able to do the right thing, be interested in things that are good for everyone."
He lived that philosophy by working for his community, his university, his country and his industry.
"Syracuse lost one of its best friend's today," said Stephen Rogers, president of The Syracuse Newspapers.
Besides working closely with Mr. Marley on many civic endeavors, Mr. Rogers fished often near Mr. Marley's summer home on Cherry Island across from Alexandria Bay in the Thousand Islands.
"He was probably one of the best fishermen locally, although on some of his trips, you wondered whether you went fishing or eating," Rogers said. "He would bring out the baloney, rye bread, sausage, cheese and a variety of drinks just before the shore dinner."
Eleanor Ludwig, director of alumni programs for Syracuse University, also remembered Mr. Marley's love of fishing.
A frequent guest at Cherry Island, she recalled how much he enjoyed entertaining. "I remember Harry with great fondness. He was a wonderful person and a great friend to all of us at the university," she said.
Mr. Marley - known as "Hecky" among his friends - once turned down a chance to run for mayor of Syracuse. But he served without pay for eight years on the Syracuse Board of Education, including two years as its president.
He also took on other unpaid jobs - including 2 1/2 months with a special U.S. mission to the Far East, including Japan and Korea, at the request of President Truman. The mission's job was to locate and select suitable scrap metal, including battlefield metal, for use in America's hungry steel furnaces, at a time vital scrap was in short supply.
He also served as a member of President Johnson's National Advisory Committee on Highway Beautification.
At his death, Mr. Marley was vice president of Abe Cooper Watertown Corp. and chairman of the board of Marley's, the Syracuse division of the Cooper firm which specialized in scrap processing and brokering scrap metals. Assets of an office equipment company he started were sold more than a dozen years ago.
Mr. Marley served as president and director of the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel, the national organization representing more than 1,100 metal recycling companies.
On Jan. 20, 1966, Mr. Marley was commended on the floor of Congress. Although he later was to be campaign manager for a Republican, it was a Democrat who honored him there.
Former Rep. James M. Hanley of Syracuse cited Mr. Marley for his "personal dedication ... to making America a better place in which to live" and for having "contributed greatly to America's store of precious metals."
As a scrap processor and president of the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel, Mr. Marley was ahead of his time in ecological concern and earned Hanley's praise for his work in that area.

MR. MARLEY was born Jan. 11, 1903. He learned about work early in life by helping his father, Meyer, who operated a tailor shop - "a nice little business" - in the West End of Syracuse. When he was only 12, he got a summer job as office boy at Brown-Lipe-Chapin, a local General Motors plant.
"That job taught me to work, and I worked every summer while going to grammar school, high school and college," he once said in an interview.
Even though he was a college graduate and a lawyer, Mr. Marley remained interested in technical work and was later instrumental in establishing a technical school at Central Technical High School.
His interest in technical education began during his high school years when he had a job In a box factory."
"I was no mechanical genius," he said.
"But I learned that many men are not good students, but they are tremendously good with their hands. And many executives told me that what they need are men who are good with their hands, but who can also fill out an application form and can be instructed what to do."
Mr. Marley, who resided at 121 Crawford Ave., was fond of telling about the summer he was a freshman at Syracuse University. He talked owners of the Loew Building, which was then being built, into letting him put a refreshment stand at the site in downtown Syracuse.
"It turned out to be one of the hottest summers in Syracuse's history, and I made about $1,800 during that summer," he said.

MR. MARLEY WAS educated at Syracuse schools and SU. At Central High School, he had played center on the football team, and was selected as All-State center in His senior year by the late Lawrence Skiddy, then Herald-Journal sports editor.
He was too small to play football in college, and his studies made it "inadvisable," he said. But his love of athletics was still strong, so he became manager of the SU basketball team. Later, he served 25 years as a member of the SU Administrative Board of Athletics and as a member, president and director of the Varsity Club.
Joe Szombathy, associate director of athletics and executive director of the Orange Pack, recalled Mr. Marley's support of SU athletics.
"He was instrumental in the Manley Field House building campaign, Carrier Dome and other building projects. He was also a mainstay, serving on the board of directors for dozens of years, of the Varsity Club," Szombathy said. "He had a wonderful life, a wonderful family and hundreds and hundreds of friends, not only locally but throughout the state and country."
In 1968, Mr. Marley was recognized by SU as a Letterman of Distinction, joining other former letter winners who are successful in their chosen careers. The previous year, he received SU's Alumni Award.
While Mr. Marley was still at Syracuse University, he and a close friend, all-time All-American football end and basketball guard Vic Hanson, organized high school basketball in Syracuse.
In 1946, Mr. Marley was among the community leaders who helped to bring the Syracuse Nationals professional basketball team to Syracuse.
He was a director of the Syracuse Chiefs baseball club from 1961 to 1978.
When he was graduated from the SU College of Law in 1927, he joined the Alderman law firm in Syracuse.

IN 1931, HE married the former Lillian Cooper of Watertown, whom he met at SU.
Responding to the urgings of his wife and her father, Abe Cooper, Mr. Marley left the law firm in 1936 to join the Cooper business. He became instrumental in helping the company grow, particularly during World War II.
In 1940, he won a major contract for the manufacture of 105mm high-explosive shells from the Rochester Ordnance District. The contract for Bagley & Sewall Co., which was owned by Mr. Marley's father-in-law, put the Cooper firm into the defense business.
The Watertown company never had produced shells before. Mr. Marley sought advice from Syracuse manufacturing executives, then hired 12 engineers from Wisconsin who had been at a company making a different type of cannon ammunition no longer being used.
Cooper reorganized operations to produce shells, and by the end of the war was turning out 135,000 shells a month.
In 1951, Mr. Marley was a member of a four-person U.S. commission, representing large steel corporations in the United States, who served as consultants for a government-sponsored mission of the Department of the Army, to investigate the steel and metal industries in Japan and Korea. He made a world tour for the U-S. government as a consultant on behalf of this commission, spending several months in the Far East.

ACTIVE IN Republican politics, he was Central New York campaign manager for Sen. Jacob K. Javits.
Mr. Marley was Javits' representative in Central New York for interviewing candidates for the military academies.
He was a member of the Reoublican Judicial Council for selection of state Supreme Court judges.
In June 1957, a few weeks after he assumed the school board presidency, Mr. Marley was offered the nomination for mayor of Syracuse on the Republican ticket. He declined, saying he preferred to remain active in the school system and devote his time to the demands of his business.
When he retired from the city school board in 1959, after serving eight years, he received the Highest Honor Award for distinguished service as president.
"Harry Marley was a great friend," said Tracy Ferguson, a lawyer in Syracuse. "I will miss him very much as I have these past few years when he was so confined in the hospital.
"He was a great father, a caring husband. He was a great citizen, and a devoted friend and tireless worker for Syracuse University. He took great pride in being a past president of the board of education and he was a confidant of political leaders and gave his advice when it was sought in all important affairs of state in this community.
"His children and grandchildren can be proud of their father and grandfather. His contribution to all affairs in this community will be well remembered, not alone by his close friends but by those in the community, so many of whom he benefited."
Among the beneficiaries will be Crouse Irving Memorial Hospital. Next year, the hospital will start construction on a $13 million education center. A lead gift of $1 million for the education center was announced Oct. 21, 1988, by the Marley family. The gift comes from Mr. and Mrs. Marley, the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, and members of the Marley family.
The building will be named the Harry and Lillian Marley Education Center. It will house expanded program's for the hospital's nursing school, advanced programs for nurses and physicians, and community service and health education programs for the public.

MR. MARLEY SERVED as a member of the state Small Business Administration Advisory Council. Later, he was a director of the Syracuse Metropolitan Development Association.
Irwin L. Davis, executive vice president of the Metropolitan Development Association, said that besides their professional relationship, he was a longtime personal friend and fishing companion of Mr. Marley's.
Davis recalled his friend today, saying, "Harry Marley signified business leadership at its finest in our community. He cared for Syracuse and represented it wherever he traveled around the world.
"On behalf of the business leadership of Central New York, Harry Marley's death is truly a void for this community."

MR. MARLEY ASSISTED former Auburn mayor Paul Lattimore and others in starting Auburn Steel, now a successful steel mill.
Mr. Marley served in a variety of ways on many community organizations.
For Syracuse University, he served on the advisory committees to the University Alumni Capital, Initial Gifts Fund, and Field House Fund.
"Harry Marley was a lifelong friend of Syracuse University. He was a loyal alumnus, a favorite of young people and he was supportive of a wide list of activities ranging from the academic to athletics. He will be missed," Chancellor Melvin Eggers said today.
He was one of the founders and first trustees of WCNY-TV public television station.
"Harry Marley was one of the small group of community leaders who worked tirelessly in the early and mid-1960s to launch public broadcasting in Central New York," said Richard W. Russell, president and general manager of WCNY-TV and FM. "Here, as with every organization to which he committed himself, his foresight, his judgment and his dedication made a critical difference. Our thoughts are with his family at this time of great loss."
Mr. Marley was a guardian member of the Boy Scouts of America in 1980.
He served on the state Commission for the Study of Juvenile Delinquency.
He was president of Brighton Towers Senior Citizen subsidized housing.

Other organizations of which Mr. Marley was a member are the Liederkranz, Elks Club, Masons, B'nai B'rith and American Jewish Committee. He was a member of Cavalry Club and Lafayette Country Club.
Mr. Marley was a member of Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity, the Onondaga County Bar Foundation, the Onondaga County Bar Association, New York State Bar Association and the American Bar Association.
He was a former trustee of Temple Society of Concord and a member of Temple Adath Yeshurun.
IN 1978, Mr. Marley and Syracuse labor leader Edward Funda were honored for their work with the Histadrut Scholarship Fund, an organization which helps finance the education of youngsters in Israel for vocational jobs.
Surviving, besides his wife, are two daughters, Susan Marley Newhouse of New York City, whose husband Donald E. Newhouse is one of the owners of The Syracuse Newspapers; and Nanci Marley Bronsteen of New York City, whose husband Robert W. Bronsteen is president of Edward Bronsteen CPA Co.
Also surviving are five grandchildren, Steven, Michael and Kathy Newhouse and John and Elizabeth Marley Bronsteen.
Services will be at 12:30 p.m. Sunday at Temple Adath Yeshurun, 450 Kimber Road. Burial will be in Adath Yeshurun Cemetery.
Friends may call from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Sunday at the temple. Birnbaum Funeral Chapel, 1909 E. Fayette St., has arrangements.


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  • Created by: R Sloma
  • Added: Aug 17, 2018
  • Find a Grave Memorial ID:
  • Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/192321366/harry-marley: accessed ), memorial page for Harry Marley (11 Jan 1903–21 Nov 1989), Find a Grave Memorial ID 192321366, citing Adath Yeshurun Cemetery, Syracuse, Onondaga County, New York, USA; Maintained by R Sloma (contributor 47469262).