Marilyn Florac

Marilyn Florac

Marilyn Florac died peacefully at home on Wednesday, June 9, 2010.

She will be greatly missed and her memory will continue as a source of unconditional love and dedication for all of her family.

Marilyn was born in Waterloo, Iowa, on September 22, 1929. She earned her RN from Iowa State Teaching College in 1951, and in the same year married the love of her life, Bill.

She served as a hospital nurse in Lansing, Michigan, while her husband attended college at Michigan State University. Shortly thereafter, she and her husband moved to Mid-Hudson Valley region in New York, where she patiently applied her talents doctoring scraped knees and guiding the minds of five daughters and one son. After Marilyn's children were grown, she was the inspiring force behind the family business, MB Farms, for which she hybridized, grew, and distributed miniature roses across the nation. In 1990, she and her husband retired to Charlottesville, Virginia, to enjoy time with their many grandchildren.

Above all else, Marilyn treasured her family and yet maintained wide and varied interests. She was wealth of knowledge about birds, gardening, botany, flower arrangements, literature, weather, health, and childrearing. She was a poet of light verse whose poems revealed her observations of people and life that reflected a soft sentiment or a twist of humor and sarcasm. She enjoyed the everyday and found warm pleasure in the sighting of a hummingbird or the warm companionship of her dog Sparky, who always brought a smile to her face.

She delighted in her grandchildren and great- grandchildren and continuously restocked her home with children's books, toys, puzzles-anything that might tickle the fancy of "the kids." She was the ultimate grandma earning the nickname of "Grandma M&M" for the constant stock of M&Ms she kept for outstretched hands.

Marilyn is survived by her loving husband for 59 years, William A. Florac; her six children, Mary Jo Babcock, Janice Cerchiara, Nancy Letteri, Bill Florac, Laura Pflugfelder, and Stephanie Luciano; 13 grandchildren, five great- grandchildren, and one more great-grandchild soon to arrive.

Her mother and father, Beatrice and Russell Stewart; and her two brothers, Dean and William Stewart, preceded her in death.

A funeral service will be conducted 10 a.m. Saturday, June 12, 2010, at Ivy Creek United Methodist Church. Interment will follow at Monticello Memory Gardens.

The family will receive friends from 6:30 until 8:30 p.m. Friday, June 11, 2010, at Teague Funeral Home.

Friends may make memorial contributions to Children of Vietnam, 817 West End Boulevard, Winston Salem, NC 27101.

Friends may sign the guest register at teaguefuneralhome.com.


This obituary was originally published in the Daily Progress.