Diana McLellan Queen of the Hill
The Hill Rag, August 2014
There was champagne and plump strawberries dipped in
chocolate, baklava coiled like escargot and topped with crumbled pistachio. The
bartenders were busy at the tables set under the trees. The sun shone
brilliantly on a polished crowd. Diana McLellan's funeral, held a few days
after her death on June 25th, was quite the bash.
Neighborhood friends rubbed shoulders with journalistic
glitterati, names you'd know if not the faces: Maureen Dowd, Kevin
Chaffee, Michael Satchell, Chuck
Conconi, Annie Groer, Stephanie Mansfield, Mike Mossetig,
Susan Watters, Ann Geracimos, Marguerite Kelly.
Washington's grande dame of gossip, a Brit of fabulous cleverness
and style, who lived in wabi sabi splendor on Constitution Avenue for fifty
years, was laid to unorthodox rest on a bed of lavender, wrapped in a glorious saffron-colored
silk shroud that peeked through the intricately woven wicker basket that served
as her coffin for the "green" funeral she had carefully planned in
her last days.
