Marilyn Ormsbee Strother

Marilyn Ormsbee Strother of Chapel Hill, NC, departed the cares of this world on September 21, 2025, at the age of 74.

Marilyn was a native of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. She treasured her family’s summers on the beaches of Southern California and backpacking with them in, at the time, virtually unpeopled places like the Sierras. While she was a junior at Urbana’s Uni High, Hallmark bought one of her watercolors for their collection. Marilyn went on to receive her BFA with honors from Mills College in Oakland, California.

Through years of self-discipline, Marilyn cultivated her artistic talent at every opportunity. She worked as a graphic artist and mural painter, studied watercolor painting under Timothy Clark in California and Billy Morrow Jackson at the University of Illinois. She volunteered with the Peace Corps as an artist in Nicaragua, where she illustrated a book on the flora of the Masaya Volcano National Park. Her service in the rural communities around Managua ended prematurely with an evacuation necessitated by the growing violence of the Sandinista Revolution.

As a long-time resident of Westchester County, NY, she was privileged to exhibit her work in such places as the United Nations in Manhattan, the distinguished Newington-Cropsey Gallery in Hastings-on-Hudson, and at many other prestigious galleries and art fairs in the region. While living in Somers, she established a sprawling garden that became one of her favorite artistic subjects. Her abiding love of nature was passed on to her children during frequent family hikes throughout the Hudson Valley.

After moving to Chapel Hill in 2001, Marilyn joined several local arts, culture, and literary groups so she could continue to pursue and develop her many passions. As a member of the Orange County Artists Guild, she invited community engagement in the arts by participating in their annual Open Studio Tour for 22 years. Marilyn was also an accomplished singer, having met her husband in Urbana’s Wesley Foundation choir in 1980, going on to perform as a soprano in several other choral groups, including the Master Singers of Westchester, the Somers Chorale, and most recently, the Women’s Voices Chorus of Chapel Hill. She also enjoyed traveling, as well as practicing her foreign language skills; whether she was attending her cherished French conversation group, playing a competitive game of Scrabble francophone with her daughter, or chatting with friendly native Spanish speakers she encountered in public.

Marilyn was a dedicated wife, a loving mother, and a much-beloved grandmother. She is survived by her husband of 43 years, Nelson Strother; her children Graham Strother (Nicole) and Raeford Thomas (Jae); her grandchildren, Rowan and Clio; and her sisters, Pamela Brodsky and Patricia Ormsbee. She was preceded in death by her parents, Allen and Geraldine Ormsbee.

A private service will be held on October 1st, where with the loving assistance of Endswell Funeral Home and the staff and volunteers of Bluestem Conservation Cemetery in Cedar Grove, NC, she will be planted in a field of wildflowers. In lieu of additional flowers, the family requests donations be made to the North Carolina Arts Foundation or the Dementia Alliance of North Carolina.