Marilyn Frances Tucker (Bennett)

Marilyn Frances Tucker (Bennett) June 30, 1938 to December 1, 2015

Graveside service Tuesday December 8, 11:00 at Ogden, UT City Cemetery

She is survived by her children, Robert Bennett (Eileen) and Margo/Margaret Pardee (Kelly); grandchildren, Jesse, Josh, Tyler, Tucker, Alex, Julie and Tessa; great-grandson, Jaxon; sister, Ellen (John); numerous nephews and nieces.

Preceded in death by husband Bob; parents. Lloyd and Jean; and step-mother Elsi; siblings,Diane, Betty, Leona, Lloyd, and Arthur.

She was born in Salt Lake City.  She was an army brat so she lived in many places including Texas, Wisconsin, and Chico, CA (where she met and married Bob.)  While raising her kids, she lived in Sacramento, CA.  She then went to visit Margaret’s family in Utah for 2 weeks.  She decided if she got a job in Utah in the 2 weeks she was there, the lord wanted her to stay there.  She lived the last years of her life living with Margaret and Kelly’s family, the last 20 Roy.

She was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  She held positions in Primary where she taught different age groups.  She was also a den mother.  She stressed getting married in the temple which both of her children did.  She had several good home teachers of which she spoke highly. 

Over the years she had different jobs.  She wanted to be at home when her kids came home from school.  She did ironing and babysitting in her home, became a teacher aide at her kids’ elementary school.  After her children graduated she then worked in the home health care field.  She did so well there that she took care of the company owner’s husband.  She even went on 2 vacations with them to help care of the husband, she enjoyed that as she got to cruise to Alaska and go to Disneyworld.  She was a housekeeper at a hotel.  In evenings she would clean a bank and lawyer offices with her husband.  She retired from being a housekeeper at the Shriners hospital.

Her favorite color was red.  Her favorite flower was red roses.  She grew roses and tomatoes.  Hobbies were reading, embroidery, going camping.  In later years she liked watching game shows, doing puzzle books and going down memory lane.   Her favorite actor was John Wayne. She loved Disneyland.  Her favorite character was Mickey Mouse.  

She liked animals.  She had canary and later finches.  She allowed her children to have fish, Guinean pigs and even ants which Robert collected from the playground of the elementary school.  When the kids were at home, they had a mutt named Sam who could jump any fence, and later a golden retriever named Georgie girl.  She put up with her husband Sheltie collie.  In her last years she doted on a beagle named Dolly.

She liked to bake.  She made cookies, cakes, cupcakes, cookies (a specialty was a sandwich cookie made out of ground almond s with jam, cream puffs and pies- mostly apple.  She made lots of cupcakes for our classes when we were in elementary school. Sometimes she would make a mistake in baking and would throw it out.  We would ask for her mistakes because they tasted good to us.

She played games with us, Canasta, Uno, careers and Life.  She played baseball with Robert. 

She liked to camp in the mountains or at the beach.  One time she threw dish water at someone and a water fight broke out between the 2 campsites (there were several relative families camping).  She ran to the one campsite and grabbed the cake she had baked.  I remember running back with the cake with water balloons flying around her.  The cake and she made it safely to our campsite. 

She would hike.  We hiked to the Feather River falls-which is not an easy hike.  We hiked through Muir woods and up the ridge so could see the ocean.  On the trip, a hiker caught her taking a bathroom break in the woods. We were so tired when we got back to the parking lot everyone was dragging their feet including our golden retriever Georgie Girl.

She loved to do genealogy.  Margo and she went on many trips researching genealogy.  One time they got stuck in the snow on mountain road trying to get to happy camp, CA. A very small remove town in Siskiyou County.  They walked to town.  Some of the lumberjacks took an interest in them so Margo and she pushed a dresser in front of the cabin door. 

She loved her family and spent time visiting her sisters.  She loved children.  She was a good wife.  Later in life, she became unhappy with her marriage (our father was not the easiest person to get along with; she stayed with him because she knew he would not take care of himself if she left.  She opened to different people that lived with her and family, her teenage sister Leona, 2 nephews Donnie and Jeff, an ex-fiancée of Robert with her 3 children learned to drive in thirties.   Good daughter in law and mother in law.  She was full of life. Wanted her children have things she did not have as a child and sacrifice to do that.  She collected knick knacks especially Mickey Mouse and bears.  Her most favorite meal was crab and sourdough bread.  She liked liver and onions.  She hated beets.  She liked green olives and sardines.

She loved to visit San Francisco (especially fisherman wharf) and Fort Bragg on the CA coast.  She loved candles. 

She would take us downtown on the bus, to see movies and Christmas shop, and we would have lunch at Woolworth.  We would have ice milk ice cream of which her favorite flavor was Maple Nut.  We had ice milk ice cream.  She liked Pepsi when we were growing up and changed to coke.  She was hypoglycemic.  She would be a real grump when she had eaten too much sugar.  In later years she would deny raiding the cookie jar, but she was heard opening and closing the cookie jar.

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