Edythe Harrison

Edythe Colton Harrison, born Edythe Joyce Colton, was a Detroit-born civic leader who made Norfolk, Virginia, her city and left her name on its opera house. She died on the afternoon of September 1, 2026, aged 91, "peacefully in the presence of her devoted family and caregivers," according to the H.D. Oliver funeral notice. The notice does not give a medical cause or name the city of death. English Wikipedia lists Boca Raton, Florida. She was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Norfolk on September 4, 2026, after a memorial service at Temple Ohef Sholom. Also known as Edie, and in formal records as Edythe Colton Harrison, she called herself a professional volunteer and then tried to build institutions around that modesty. (H.D. Oliver funeral notice; Library of Virginia Changemakers; English Wikipedia.)

She was born in Detroit on September 17, 1934. Her mother, Lottie (Sultan) Colton, trained in Paris to be a concert pianist; the funeral notice says her mentor was Wanda Landowska. Her father, Dr. Arthur Colton, was a dentist, a tenor, and an opera enthusiast. Harrison later said of her parents, "They had faith in me. They never corrected me. I never, ever felt fear." That line, preserved in the funeral notice, is as close as any source comes to explaining the confidence people later met in public life. (H.D. Oliver funeral notice.)

In 1954 she met Stanley L. Harrison, a young Norfolk real-estate executive, at a fraternity social weekend. They married at the Colton home in Detroit on December 3, 1955, and settled in Norfolk in 1956. Institutional biographies at the Library of Virginia and Old Dominion University date her Norfolk residence to 1957; the family notice is the more specific family account. They raised a son, Tim, and two daughters, Jody and Julie. Stanley died on June 11, 1991. The Virginian-Pilot reported in 2007 that when she was diagnosed with the need to care for him she was 54 and pulled back from public work, and that he died in 1991, two years before the opera house that bears both their names opened. (H.D. Oliver funeral notice; Virginian-Pilot, April 30, 2007; Library of Virginia.)

The move south placed a northern newcomer in a city then fighting desegregation. She campaigned door to door in Larchmont against Massive Resistance, when Norfolk closed public schools rather than integrate them after Brown v. Board of Education. The Pilot later reported that she got into politics to protest those closures and took her three children to demonstrations. The funeral notice says her husband stood with her, "support courageous in its own right." Asked her occupation, she answered "professional volunteer." (H.D. Oliver funeral notice; Virginian-Pilot, April 30, 2007.)

Before the legislature, she tried local television. The Pilot said she studied television production at Wayne State University, found that women did not run television shows in Hampton Roads, and appeared as "Miss Eydie" on WTAR-TV's "Hometown Hoedown." The official House of Delegates biography lists education at Finch College and Wayne State University. English Wikipedia's infobox lists Stephens College (attended), Marymount Manhattan College (attended), and a Wayne State BA, but the page source links the second college label to Finch College. This profile does not treat a specific degree as settled beyond those conflicting public lists and the Pilot's account of television study. (Virginian-Pilot, April 30, 2007; Virginia House of Delegates History DOME; English Wikipedia.)

Music was the family inheritance she made civic. In 1974 she organized the Virginia Opera Association and became its founding chair. The first season was two productions at the Norfolk Center Theater, a largely unused WPA-era arena in Ghent. Stanley, the Pilot reported, first scoffed: "If you're lucky, you'll sell 12 tickets," then, "Make that 11. I'm not coming." He later attended every show. She said he used to tell people, "I take care of her. She takes care of the rest of the world." Peter Mark became artistic director and held the post for more than 35 years. The company grew into a regional house playing Norfolk, Richmond, and Fairfax. In 1994 the General Assembly designated Virginia Opera the official opera company of the Commonwealth. (H.D. Oliver funeral notice; Virginia Opera about page; Norfolk city facilities page; Virginian-Pilot, April 30, 2007.)

She led a campaign that raised about $10 million to turn the Center Theater into a modern opera house. The building reopened in 1993 as the Edythe C. and Stanley L. Harrison Opera House, 160 Virginia Beach Boulevard, capacity 1,632, owned by the City of Norfolk. Stanley did not live to see the opening. A WHRO report from the renovation era identified primary million-dollar donors Martin and Jodi Grass as the daughter and son-in-law of the founding president; the 2026 funeral notice spells the daughter Jody and names her husband Martin. (Library of Virginia Changemakers; Norfolk.gov; Wikipedia Harrison Opera House; WHRO "Our Place, Our Time" transcript; H.D. Oliver funeral notice.)

In 1979 President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the Advisory Committee on the Arts at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The same year she won a Norfolk seat in the Virginia House of Delegates, taking office on January 9, 1980. She represented the 39th district in 1980 and 1981 and the 37th in 1982, succeeding Albert Teich and followed later by Stephen E. Gordy. Committees included Chesapeake and Its Tributaries, Conservation and Natural Resources, Interstate Cooperation, Education, and Labor and Commerce. She chaired a joint legislative subcommittee on vocational-technical and career education and sat on the National Conference of State Legislatures arts committee. The funeral notice says she fought for a law requiring physicians to obtain informed consent from women with cancer before mastectomies. She told the Pilot she was one of only seven women in the chamber and that "it was just a different world." (H.D. Oliver funeral notice; DOME; ODU finding aid; Library of Virginia.)

Redistricting ended that tenure. In 1982 she lost a Democratic primary to incumbent House Majority Leader Thomas W. Moss Jr. The funeral notice calls it narrowly decided. She was not finished. In 1984 she won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate and challenged Republican incumbent John Warner. She was the first woman nominated for statewide office by the Virginia Democratic Party. In a 2007 interview she said, "I was the first woman to win a statewide nomination for federal office" in Virginia. On November 6, 1984, Warner received 1,406,194 votes (70.05 percent) and Harrison 601,142 (29.95 percent). The family notice says she "won more than a million votes." That figure does not match the certified result. Warner's landslide came in a hard year for Democrats nationally. Her campaign papers, including debate notes and two letters from Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, are in the Edythe C. Harrison Papers at Old Dominion University (MG 60). (English Wikipedia 1984 Virginia Senate election page; H.D. Oliver funeral notice; Virginian-Pilot, April 30, 2007; ODU finding aid.)

After the race she taught. The Library of Virginia says she taught a class titled Women in Leadership at Old Dominion University. The funeral notice says she founded the university's Women's Studies Department and became its first chair. The Pilot says she briefly taught political science there and left to care for Stanley. Her papers include course files. In 2010 the Library of Virginia named her a Virginia Women in History honoree. (Library of Virginia Changemakers; ODU finding aid; Virginian-Pilot, April 30, 2007; H.D. Oliver funeral notice.)

The civic list is long and mostly quiet. She served Women's American ORT (founding president in Virginia, per the House biography), the Greater Norfolk Corporation, the Norfolk Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Old Dominion's President's Advisory Council, the Norfolk State University Board of Trustees, the Regional Hospice Council of Tidewater, the Virginia Alliance for Arts Education, and the National Conference of Christians and Jews, which gave her its Brotherhood Award in 1978. In 1980 she was a founding member of Virginians Organized for Informed Community Expression (V.O.I.C.E.), formed to answer what the ODU finding aid calls vocal right-wing attacks on abortion and medical research on human reproduction. In 1983 she chaired the 2nd District chapter of the National Women's Political Caucus. The Pilot added a Brussels trip as a delegate to the World Conference on Soviet Jewry and "a frustrating year" as a nongovernmental delegate at the United Nations. She supported day care for working mothers, the Equal Rights Amendment, and women's reproductive rights. (H.D. Oliver funeral notice; DOME; ODU finding aid; Library of Virginia; Virginian-Pilot, April 30, 2007.)

In 2007, at 72, she told the Pilot she was still doing the job on her official biography. She had seven grandchildren then, ages 3 to 18. That winter she was in Florida after dogs tripped her and she broke a bone in her shoulder. She said she intended to return to Norfolk. The sentence she left the interviewer is the one later echoed in the funeral notice: "I never was afraid to stand up for what I believed was right. The real trick in life is to live long enough that eventually people will agree with you." (Virginian-Pilot, April 30, 2007.)

She is survived by her son Tim and his wife Caroline; daughters Jody (Martin) and Julie; grandchildren Leila, Sharla (Dan), Noah, Tim, Alice, Aliza, and Josh; and great-grandchild Caroline. The funeral notice gives the children's ages as of 2026 as Tim 69, Jody 67, and Julie 62. In lieu of flowers the family suggested Women's American ORT, Cleveland Clinic, Florida, or a charity of the giver's choosing. Virginia Opera general director John-Paul Schaefer said her legacy "is deeply intertwined with Virginia Opera" and "permanently reflected" in the opera house that is still the company's headquarters. (H.D. Oliver funeral notice; WTKR, September 2026.)