Marion Lorraine Hill Collins ’53, 1931–2023

Marion Lorraine Hill Collins ’53, whose Time Magazine job out of college launched a lifelong writing career, died at age 91 on Sept. 15, 2023, in Billings, Montana. She was still writing timely commentaries for the Daily Montanan at age 90.

Collins majored in English and French and wrote for The Cornellian. She moved to New York City after graduation, where she became an editorial researcher for Time Magazine, later recalling, “I had a glamorous job, but I didn’t like it. Women weren’t allowed to write for the magazine so I left.” She returned to her home state of South Dakota to teach high school English and journalism and served as her Cornell Class Agent for the next 20 years.

Collins became a humor columnist for Marriage and Family Living, authored the book “What’s A Place Like This Doing to a Nice Girl Like Me?”, and chaired the South Dakota Commission on the Status of Women in the 1970s. When her family moved abroad due to her husband’s work, she became assistant editor of the Singapore American Newspaper and, from London, published in British newspapers and magazines. Back in the U.S. she published mystery short stories in magazines, became a South Dakota Public Radio commentator, and in 2018 published a mystery novel, “Safe House.”

She is survived by her two daughters, a son, four grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.