Marian Etta Lerch

Marian Etta Lerch

Simi Valley, CA

Marian Etta Hurlburt Lerch was born on March 10, 1922 in Bliss, Wyoming County, New York. She was the second child of Frank Ornan Hurlburt and Margaret Williams. She had two brothers, Frank O., and Russell and one sister, Hildreth.

Bliss was a small farming community in Western New York. Marian and her siblings attended elementary school in a one-room school house. Middle school was held in District School in Toddwaddle, and high school was completed in Bliss. Marian was an avid student, excelling in all subjects but especially enjoying English Literature. She was valedictorian of her high school class and had, at the time, one of the highest Regents averages in New York State.

After high school, Marian attended Houghton College until her oldest brother was hospitalized in Rochester and family finances dictated her return home. She went to work at the Castile Sanitarium and then at Millard Fillmore Hospital in Rochester, New York, anticipating joining the next nursing class. After a brief period there, she became seriously ill with a stomach ulcer, returning to Buffalo, recovered, and went to work at Eastern States Milling. She boarded at the home of Meade and Mabel Lerch. It was here that she met and fell in love with their son, Byron. Upon meeting him, she said she knew "he was the one for me,"

At the conclusion of Byron's military service in World War ll, they were married in the Bliss Baptist Church on February 22, 1946. They moved to California and purchased homes in Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach. It was here that their four daughters, Julie, Gwenyth ,Marlys, and Hildreth were born.

In 1966 the family moved to Simi Valley. Her daughters graduated from Simi Valley High School and began families of their own. Her grandchildren, Seana Moss, Michelle White-Dames, Erin Moss, Jason Moss, Byron Campen, Warren Campen, Leila Willcox , and Melissa Willcox, blessed her life with their energy and activities, as did great grandchildren Kaitlin ( Michelle and Chad Dames), Bruce and Dana (Byron and Kimberly Campen), and Olivia (Leila and Robin Woo). Erik and Erin Hawkins will be giving her another great-grandchild in May.

Marian was a superb artist with a pair of knitting needles and a crochet hook. Her work blessed not only her family but hundreds of others over the course of her life. She organized extensive family camping trips as her daughters were growing up. One of these trips lasted most of the summer and covered over 10,000 miles. She was ever willing to assist those in her neighborhood who were in need of transportation, meals, or a listening ear.

She died on November 2, 2015, in Carson City Nevada, at the age of 93 after a very brief illness and is buried next to her beloved Byron in Simi Valley, California.