MARCELINE FRANCES SULLIVAN

MARCELINE FRANCES SULLIVAN

November 26, 1926 – February 16, 2017

In the twinkling of an eye, all has changed. Our constant North Star has become our eternal flame. House Sullivan has lost its Queen.

Marceline Sullivan returned to God’s embrace on February 16, 2017, at age 90. She was so much to so many, our fiery, brilliant, and fun-loving matriarch, who personified joy and zest for life and showed how exceptionally one could live it.

Mother to nine, grandmother to 17 and great-grandmother to 14, she was our incomparable ringleader, our irrepressible Granny Thrash. She was grace, wisdom and love unbounded.

Her uncommon life began nine decades ago in the Jazz Age.  She was born to Frank and Marian Schroll in Kansas City, Mo., on November 26, 1926. She was both country girl and city girl, raised by grandparents in the farmlands of Greenleaf, Kan., during the Great Depression, and educated as a teenager in Lincoln, Neb., amid World War II.

She was the 1943 valedictorian at Cathedral High School in Lincoln at age 16 and a student at Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kan., leaving after one year to teach in country schoolhouses in Greenleaf and Barnes, Kan.

The 1940s’ Marcie Schroll was a big band era knockout, with pin-up looks and extraordinary intelligence and character.  The combination torpedoed a young sailor home briefly on leave from the Navy. Leo Sullivan proposed marriage after just one week. The two corresponded constantly for the remaining two years of the war and married in 1946.

A military wife from the late 1940s through early 1960s, Marcie held down the fort as the Navy stationed the family in Nebraska and Pennsylvania. Then came civilian life, and a move to Ogden, where the Sullivans put down roots in 1966.

As a mother, she was without equal; as a person, larger than life. She was the tiniest yet the mightiest of us, with strength, personality and generosity in outsized proportion.

She embodied the greatest traits of the Greatest Generation, with its towering achievement and modest demeanor, its sacrifices and triumphs, work ethic, patriotism and faith in God.

The Catholic Church, family and country were Marcie’s pillars, and her devotion to all three was unequivocal and certain. She was a member of St. Joseph’s Catholic Parish and sent all of her children to Catholic schools. She was always, however, our best, most influential teacher.

She and Leo were together for 35 years until separated by his death in 1981. After that, Marcie went to work full-time as a certified nurses’ aide at St. Benedict’s Hospital and later as an IRS tax examiner at the service center in Ogden.

She was gregarious, witty and mischievous. The light in her eyes reflected from within. It was not unheard of for Marcie to lead a toilet-papering raid, to crank up her kids’ rock and roll music, to give hilarious gifts and to laugh easily and honestly.

Her energy and interests were boundless. She was hard-wired for generosity. She gave in ways too numerous to count, whether money to favorite causes or to family having a rough go. She spent the least on herself.

Always she was nurturing, role modeling and teaching – with books, music, explorations and adventures – and her own sense of limitless wonderment and fascination with the world.

She loved dancing and lively parties, she sang and taught piano. Animals were a passion, as so many things were. She attracted strays and even wild things in need of a splint or bandage. At a point in life when most would relax, Marcie started a pet sitting business, which she continued into her early 80s.

She was gregarious and opinionated, and knowledgeable on nearly any subject. Political arguments were a specialty for this lifelong conservative and loyal Republican. She revered Ronald Reagan. She was unflinching in her support and belief in Donald Trump. Throughout her life she loved playing softball, organizing games for years with family and friends. Marcie could throw strikeouts well into her 70’s. She struck out everyone. And then she’d feed them all afterward.

Family was her foundation. She raised her own children and then helped raise some of the next generation. She was such a sassy spitfire the grandchildren had to come up with a moniker. Granny Thrash it was. She loved it, and she loved us all, fully, truly, completely.

If only the world could stand still to acknowledge a momentous loss. One of her favorite movies was “Heaven is For Real.” We’re certain she now knows firsthand.

Marcie was preceded in death by her husband and parents, sister Carol Howard and one daughter, Marian Sullivan.

Those who will miss her forever are her children: Georgia Gilbert, Carol Sullivan, John Sullivan (Mary Maguire), Rita Sullivan, Pat Sullivan, Laurie Maddox (John), Maureen Sullivan (Ray Calloway), James Sullivan (Lori); her half-sisters Sylvia Schroll and Norma Rozbaril (John); her 17 grandchildren Mike Hawkins (Marlana), Derek Jensen (Teresa), Matt Calvert, Ted Calvert (Amy), Paul Jensen (Teresa), Sarah Delilo (Ed), Ryan Gilbert, Josh Gilbert, Danny Sullivan, Alec Maddox, Aiden Sullivan, Quinn Sullivan, Jarett Sullivan, Tommy Maddox, Jack Maddox, Liam Sullivan and Emmanuel Sullivan, along with her 14 great-grandchildren.

The family offers heartfelt thanks to her in-home caregivers, Brent and Susan, and the siblings send profound gratitude and love to sister Georgia for being mom’s constant and compassionate ultimate caregiver and angel.

Funeral Mass will be held Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 2 pm at St. Joseph Catholic Church, 514 24th Street, Ogden, Utah. A viewing will be held Monday evening, February 20, 2015 from 7 to 9 pm, with Holy Rosary at 8 pm, at Aaron’s Mortuary, 496 24th Street, Ogden, Utah. Interment Ogden City Cemetery.