Marian Hoyle says good-bye
laurac...@frontiernet.net
I always admired Marian's high energy and good spirits. She had real leadership qualities and despite a very forceful personality and sometimes crusty manner, she also had a huge heart and loved to help people and causes she believed in.
She also had a wonderfully sly sense of humor, and was a lot of fun to be around. She touched many people's lives in varied and beneficial ways. Thank you, kind Marian! ~Laura
She belonged to the Mattole Valley Women’s Club in its heyday and was the president and filled other offices. In 2004, the Women’s Club chose her to receive their Citizen of the Year award, of which she was immensely proud. She also served on the Mattole Election Board and was a member of the Neighborhood Emergency Service Team. She and her husband, Bob, worked through Food for People, Eureka, and distributed monthly commodities to the people in Petrolia and Honeydew.
Marian grew up in New York State’s beautiful Hudson Valley. Freshly out of high school, she worked for Twentieth Century Fox in New York City, and then later for the U.S. Air Forces as a civilian. She met Bob at West Point in 1952 and they married a few months later. After their fifth and last son, Marian attended the University of Rhode Island but did not complete the requirements for a degree and regretted it all her life.
The family came to California in 1965 and lived in the Bay Area for twenty-five years. During that time, Marian worked at the U.C. Berkeley library as a library assistant and volunteered at Berkeley Free Clinic as a paramedic. Her favorite job, however, was school secretary at MacGregor High School. She continued to hear from former students long after she left the area. She was committed to Bob’s long-term projects of raising money for his school’s athletic program and became a champion of his dedication; she was awarded a P.T.A. Life Membership for contributions to school and community.
Marian wrote regular columns for the Albany [CA] Community News, serving as editor for part of that time, and also wrote and published a book of her own: “The Complete Garage Sale,” which reflected her interest in attending and having garage sales in the Bay Area. In Petrolia she wrote a monthly column reporting on Grange activities, and was also the Mattole Notes reporter for The Ferndale Enterprise for several years.
Marian continued her enjoyment of writing after she and Bob moved to Ferndale and became the secret “Ask Yenta” advice columnist for the Senior News, and contributed articles to the paper. She was known for her enthusiasm, sense of fun, and willingness to help. She was a voracious reader. She designed the home that she and Bob built in Mattole after retiring there in 1990. However, she did speak her mind, had no tolerance for fools, and was only a mediocre cook.
After Bob developed dementia and started fading, the pair moved to Redwood Valley to be closer to family. Bob died in 2013. They had been married for 61 years. Marian and Bob are preceded in death by their sons Murray and Mickey. She reluctantly leaves behind their sons, David and wife Sara, Peter and wife Cindy, whom Marian called her “daughter-on-loan,” and Max and his wife Sherry. Their grandchildren Robert, Steven, Katie, Kaitlin, and Emily. Also, her great-grandchildren James, Remi, Maverick, and Elsie. She also leaves her dear friends, Cindy Weber and Jan Anderson and many other friends from Mattole.
At Marian’s request there will be no funeral service. She
hopes her friends and family will remember her with kindness and overlook her
many faults.