Marie Antoon
Jackson and Greenwood
Marie Antoon was born in Clarksdale in 1954 to Asper Antoon and Irma Houston Antoon. She lived in Greenwood for a short time as a small child, but then her family moved to Jackson, where she grew up, returning to Greenwood throughout childhood—as often as every other weekend—to visit Lebanese family there. Although not Lebanese, Marie’s mother, Irma, “was a great Lebanese cook,” Marie recalls. “She was one of the best.”
Marie’s father’s mother’s parents came to America around 1880, and once here they worked as peddlers. Her father’s father, Farris Asper Antoon, came around 1916, immigrating through Ellis Island in New York. Shortly after he arrived in America, he married Rosemary Toubia (also spelled Tobia elsewhere) in an arranged marriage. The Antoons migrated to Greenwood, Mississippi, and started a family, although Marie’s father, Asper Antoon, was born in 1928 in El Dorado, Arkansas, where the family was living at the time. The Antoons eventually moved back to Greenwood.
During the early decades of the twentieth century, the Antoons became a family of retail merchants, opening small corner grocery stores and Antoon’s Department Store in Greenwood (ca. 1910), when the city was the fastest-growing town in the state. Antoon’s Department Store stayed in business in the Antoon family on the corner of Carrollton and Main Sts. until 1995.
After attending Catholic and public schools in Jackson, Marie graduated high school and entered the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, studying communications. She graduated in 1975. She went to work with Alabama Public Television in 1976 and then in Florida, where she also worked for a television station. She later returned to Mississippi, enrolling at the University of Mississippi, earning a master’s degree in history and becoming the director of the university’s Teleproductions Resource Center. In 2002, Antoon became the Mississippi Educational Broadcasting network’s first female executive director. She retired from the position in 2009.
Today, Marie Antoon lives in Oxford with her husband, Charles Reagan Wilson.
This interview took place at Antoon’s home in Oxford on November 10, 2017.
AUDIO (Click to listen):
VIDEO (Click to play):
Marie Antoon talks about her grandparents’ journey to America.
IMAGES (Click to enlarge):
These photos are of Marie Antoon’s great-grandmother Rosemary (Rose) Toubia Antoon. The first is of Rose’s first communion. The second and third images are of Rose during the Antoon family’s time in El Dorado, Arkansas, where Marie suspects the family may have raised goats.
Below: Antoon family recipes for rolled grape leaves, kibbee, and baklawa.
