Dorothy Parker’s Extended Run in Baltimore Is Ending

Excuse her dust -- again.

The NAACP’s desire to move its headquarters from Baltimore to the nation’s capital not only surprised city officials earlier this month, it also seized the attention of writer Dorothy Parker’s admirers.

Through an unlikely set of circumstances, Parker’s ashes are buried in a memorial garden at the civil rights organization’s northwest Baltimore headquarters.

Fans of Parker, the oft-quoted, quintessential New York writer, wondered if she would make the trip to the District of Columbia with the civil rights group. If not, where would she go at this stage of her, well, death?

“I hope things turn out well for her,� says Kevin Fitzpatrick, president of the 3,000-member Dorothy Parker Society in New York. “We’re waiting to find out.�

How Parker’s ashes came to be buried in Baltimore -- under a plaque that includes her own epitaph, “Excuse my dust� -- is something of a twisted tale. In life, the famed wit of the Algonquin Round Table was not particularly fond of the city.

In the early 1920s, Parker traveled here to see her play, “Close Harmony,� open and close in two weeks. She took the opportunity to visit another witty writer and social commentator of the day, H. L. Mencken, whose work she respected and who had published many of her short stories. But the social call did not go well, according to Marion Meade’s biography, “Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell is This?�

“On this particular evening, she was disappointed to find him coarse and insensitive,� Meade wrote. “When he began to tell jokes about blacks, Dorothy bristled and decided to leave. She refused to spend the night in Baltimore.�

It is unclear if Parker visited the city again.

Parker had bequeathed her estate to a man whose work she admired, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Meade wrote that a “puzzled� King graciously accepted the $20,000 estate, but “he had no idea who Parker was.� King died 10 months after Parker’s death in 1967. Over executor Lillian Hellman’s protests, Parker’s estate then passed on to the NAACP (as Parker had requested in the event of King’s death), which inherited and still holds the copyrights to Parker’s collected works.

“This sounds crass,� Meade says, “but she is their property.�

In her will, though, Parker did not say where she wanted to be buried. While researching Parker’s biography, Meade interviewed the writer’s attorney, Paul O’Dwyer, who nonchalantly opened a filing cabinet in his New York office to show her the box of Parker’s ashes. The remains remained there for 15 years, as O’Dwyer had no idea what to do with them. Meade says suggestions for a final resting place included painting Parker’s ashes into a mural at New York’s Algonquin Hotel, where she and her band of New York literati held court in the 1920s.

The mural idea died, mercifully. In the meantime, the NAACP, which had been based in New York, moved to Baltimore in 1986.

Executive Director Benjamin Hooks heard about the unceremoniously filed ashes and thought Parker’s remains deserved a more distinguished resting place. A $10,000 memorial garden was created at the group’s headquarters on Mount Hope Drive in 1988.

“It was,� says Fitzpatrick, “one of the nicest things in literature that any group has done for an author.� Parker, beyond her reputation for acerbic book reviews and quotable one-liners, was also a champion of social justice who wrote about race relations in the 1920s, Fitzpatrick says.

He hopes Parker’s remains will have a suitable new home. “If the NAACP moves to a similar location with a campus setting, then they could move her garden there,� he says. “However, if they are just renting office space, it might be time to think of a different location.

“What are you going to do -- keep her on a shelf?� (Parker had, of course, already spent 15 years in that filing cabinet.)

In a grove of pine trees on Mount Hope Drive, walkways lead to a small, circular brick memorial behind an office building. The bricks have bowed a bit at the Dorothy Parker Memorial Gardens, but the centerpiece urn and epitaph are unmoved.

“Here lie the ashes of Dorothy Parker. Humorist, Writer, Critic. Defender of Human and Civil Rights,� reads the NAACP’s 1988 inscription, which included the writer’s suggested epitaph. “Excuse my dust� is a quintessential Parkerism, ranking alongside such witticisms as, “men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses,� “brevity is the soul of lingerie,� and “I don’t care what is written about me as long as it isn’t true.�

This, though, is true: souls still find their way to her out-of-the-way memorial.

“Ironically enough, we had two ladies come by the gravesite just last weekend,� says NAACP spokesman Richard McIntire. The group’s pamphlet, “Epitaph for a Darling Lady,� is still given to visitors. “Ms. Parker lives on,� McIntire says.

But, will she live on in Washington? McIntire referred the question to the NAACP chairman, Julian Bond, who said no specific plans had been made regarding the group’s move -- or Parker’s remains.

“Of course, we would no more think of abandoning these ashes than jumping off the top of the Empire State Building,� Bond says. “We will make sure her remains will have a suitable home close to wherever our new home will be in D.C.�