“Swifties” in the Bluff City have cause for celebration today, as Taylor Swift’s late grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was born on this day in 1928.
Although born in Memphis, Marjorie was raised in St. Charles, Missouri and would go on to earn a Bachelor’s Degree in music in 1949, as she was a gifted coloratura soprano singer.
Marjorie would eventually strike it big the following year after winning ABC’s radio show, “Music With the Girls,” which would lead to a 15 month tour across the U.S.
Marjorie would, then, go on to live and travel extensively throughout South America with her husband, Robert Finlay, where she gained a reputation as a noted opera and nightclub singer.
This love of music would inevitably influence her maternal granddaughter, Taylor Swift, who was 13 years old and looking for a record deal in Nashville when her grandmother passed away in 2003 at the age of 74.
Such was the impact Marjorie had on Taylor that she would name one of her songs after her in her 2020 album, “Evermore,” which is praised by Swifties as being one of her more heartfelt compositions.
