Basalone and Antoinette Volturo, second and first generation immigrant Italian parents. She was
raised and attended school in New Jersey, with frequent all day trips to New York on the
weekends to pursue her love of the arts in museums and gallery exhibitions. Marie was a seeker,
always trying to understand her world, to puzzle out the big questions, reading novels, she often
said, not for pleasure only but in order to find the meaning of life. In 1959 she attended Antioch
College, returning home for a while, working on a local newspaper and on an underground
magazine in New York. Subsequently she attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Eventually she made her way to New York City where, living in Greenwich Village, she became
involved in the arts scene. She eventually joined Hilton Services in New York. When Hilton
began its conversion to a computerized reservation system, Marie served as a facilitator between
programmers and the needs of the company, overseeing the testing of programs and then
employee training in using them. In this capacity, Marie eventually moved to Dallas, Texas, in
1972. Having had enough of this corporate environment, she finally quit Hilton in 1983, living
on savings for a period while she took courses in drawing, painting, and ceramics. Art was
always central to her life, and her house is full of photography and prints and beautiful pots. It
was during this period that she met her future companion and wife Eileen Gregory. Marie and
Eileen were together from 1984 until Marie’s death, marrying finally in February 2020. With the
advent of personal computers, Marie began her own business of setting up and maintaining
computers for individuals and small businesses. She had a grateful following among these
clients, who valued not only her knowledge and skill, but her calm and respectfulness, her ability
to communicate computer navigations in a clear and simple way. Her friends remember Marie as
a loyal friend, ready to intervene in need, to listen thoughtfully, and to offer candid and cleareyed
advice when it was called for. To her wife, she was a rock of steadiness and honesty,
unflagging in her affection, respect, and friendship.
Marie died on October 27, 2020, of liver cancer. She is survived by her wife Eileen Gregory, of
Dallas, and her brother Danny Basalone, of Oakland Park, Florida.
Services for Marie will be held November 11, 2020, at Marie and Eileen’s home in Dallas. An
inurnment will follow at Calvary Hill Cemetery in Dallas.
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