Jean MacKinnon Marlow

Jean Ruth MacKinnon Marlow passed away on Easter Sunday, April 5th, 2026, leaving behind a joyous life, well-lived. Known for her extremely sharp wit, Jean kept the zingers coming right 'til the end.

Born October 16th, 1929, in Derry, NH, Jean graduated from Pinkerton Academy in 1947. During her late teens, she met James (Jim) Wendell Marlow, who was stationed at Grenier Air Force Base in nearby Manchester, NH. After getting married in 1954, they settled on ten acres in East Bend, NC, to raise their family and a menagerie of animals.

Jean (aka Momma) placed high expectations on her children because she had these same high expectations of herself and, geez, did she set the bar high! While not the most patient of teachers (I well remember several occasions on which I'd whine, "But, Momma, I'm trying!" and she would dryly reply, "Yes, Leslie, you are."), Momma taught us to greet the world and all its inhabitants with a smile and kindness. This especially extended to the animal world, and our house was often filled with various wild critters we were feeding with eye-droppers or nursing back to health...ones that Paige had undoubtedly snuck into our bedroom, of course! We also had the joy of being surrounded by dogs, cats, horses, bunnies, chickens, pigs (both bacon-producers and Guinea) over the decades thanks to her big heart.

Momma NEVER quit learning and was a voracious reader of mystery novels and the daily newspaper. Her love of learning and desire to teach us how to look up facts for ourselves meant that at least once every night during supper she would direct one of us to "go look it up in the Funk & Wagnall's" (boy, that's dating us)! Our dad would get exasperated at the interruptions, and she'd inform him that we needed to learn and he needed to be quiet!

She was incapable of not doing everything she tried well...from crewel embroidery to crocheting to macrame to being an unparalleled seamstress who sewed hundreds of ballet costumes yearly for the dance academy we girls attended. Momma realized rather quickly that her daughters hadn't received those particular handicraft skills. But, being blessed with eating her incredible cooking meant we kids all became accomplished in the kitchen because we didn't want to suffer when we moved out on our own. Momma loved to tell the story of how early one Saturday morning she caught Greg, at the ripe old age of 3, standing on a chair at the stove frying eggs for Paige and himself, and how it about gave her a heart attack! Later on, she took it fairly well in stride as Dad began planting bigger gardens each year and she canned, froze, pickled, and jellied everything imaginable before "farm-to-table" became a novelty versus what real folks just do.

The 60 years in East Bend were interrupted for two years when Dad's job took us to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Momma discovered a love of travel and a whole slew of other cuisines to cook. She was enthralled with every place she visited: Jordan, Sri Lanka, Spain, Egypt, Thailand, England, but her one regret was never seeing her paternal grandmother's birthplace on the Isle of Mull in Scotland... In 2016, when she moved to Ellicott City, MD, to live with daughter Leslie and beloved son-in-law Scott, he made it his mission to get Momma overseas one last time. In 2019, for her 90th birthday, Scott planned a 10-day trip for us to take Momma and her BFF, Suzanne Tucker Blunk, to London and Oxford, England, and then to Edinburgh, Oban, and Mull, Scotland. Momma said it was the dream of a lifetime come true.

Momma loved music and she loved to dance. She loved to celebrate others and her love language was cooking for them. Momma's best lesson was to seize each and every day and not let go until you'd wrung everything possible out of it. She enjoyed her daily martini (sometimes she'd request "another half'a, please!") with a huge smile on her face, and assured us all it was better than an apple-a-day! And, as she aged well into her 90s, her doctors never found cause to argue!

She was preceded in death by her parents, Leon Barnett MacKinnon, Sr., and Marion Louise Whitcomb; all her younger siblings: Leon MacKinnon, Robert (Lois) MacKinnon, Kenneth (Yaeko) MacKinnon, Carol MacKinnon, and Janice Arbarchuk; and her husband, James Wendell Marlow. She is survived by her children, all of whom were apparently her favorite based on her having given us each t-shirts reading "Mom Loves Me Best": son Gregory Alan Marlow and daughter Paige Alyson Marlow, both of Lancaster, SC, and daughter Leslie Marlow Geist and husband Scott August Geist of Ellicott City, MD; grandchildren Marlow Elizabeth Geist, Trevor Marlow Hoxworth, and Elias Gregory Geist and his wife, Emily Greene Geist; and dozens of loved ones and friends who all called her Momma or Gramma Jean.