Folly F. King, age 94, died peacefully on August 20, 2019 on Hilton Head Island. Folly was born in London, England, on September 13, 1924, to parents who moved often to California, Illinois, Ohio, Minnesota, and New York.
Her father was a college English professor, so summers were spent on family camping trips. When Folly was seven, she contracted a serious illness that caused her to miss the first six grades of school.
When she started school in the seventh grade in Oberlin, Ohio, she was chosen as the most popular girl in her class and class president.
Folly started her college time at Antioch College, then Ohio State, with a focus on art, a small black college in Richmond, VA, and finally graduated from Claremont College in California.
In Claremont Folly married her first husband, built a house with him, had two children, organized a Young Democrats group, and started an active peace group. They moved to the Detroit area where she obtained a master’s degree in education at the U. of Michigan. After three years when Folly taught art in public schools, the couple moved to Washington, DC. In Washington Folly became known for her painting after winning prizes in shows and being represented in a number of galleries. Also, she did publicity for black rights groups.
In 1961 Folly and several friends organized the Women Strike for Peace, a powerful national and international peace activist organization against nuclear testing and later the Vietnam war. She went to Brussels to represent the USA organization.
She was nominated to be one of Time Magazine’s 100 Outstanding Women of the Year. Folly and her husband spent a year in England and London. When they returned her husband found another woman at work and the marriage was over. It was over two years before Folly fell in love with John King, an architect, when they met at a singles group she was leading. During that time Folly completed a Master of Social Work degree.
Then after marriage came a really busy life. One house was rebuilt, another built overlooking the Potomac River, then they moved to an 88-acre farm north of Frederick, MD, and they renovated an 1892 house in Fredrick. Folly was hands on with these projects and at the same time running a successful psychotherapist office in Virginia. On the activist side for two years she managed a weekly collection of thrift shops picking up everything from treadle sewing machines, to tires, to clothing and taking them to the UU Church of Frederick where women would pack them. She would then take the entire load to Dulles for shipment to Nicaragua by Quest for Peace.
For recreation the couple took bicycle trips to France, Netherlands and down the Danube River. They went to Mexico, Puerto Rica, Costa Rica, Italy, Greece, and England by canal. On weekends they often went cruising on the Chesapeake Bay in John’s 35ft. sailboat.
In 2002, tiring of six-foot snow drifts, the couple moved south to Hilton Head, SC. Soon Folly was active. She continued painting and held three shows locally. She started crafting bead necklaces from a huge collection she collected over the years. The money from the sale of her necklaces went to the Seabrook Foundation. Hilton Head for Peace and Women in Black were formed in a meeting at her house and she continued to be one of the leaders participating in all of the many sign displays along 278.
She was active in the UU Congregation and Life Long Learning.
Folly is survived by her husband, a son, Eben Fodor of Eugene, OR, Becky Marlin of Buxton, NC, granddaughter, Jesse Marlin of Boone, NC and grandson Jedd Fodor of Eugene, OR. A memorial service celebrating Folly’s life will be held on Sunday, September 22 at 2:00 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Low Country, 110 Malphrus Rd, Bluffton, SC.