Marilyn Senn Moll

06/17/1929 - 06/29/2025

Marilyn S. Moll was born in Sandusky Ohio on June 17, 1929, to Frank R. and Olive Merle Senn, and spent her youth on the shores of Lake Erie. During WWII, with her father serving in the army air forces, she spent her last two years of secondary education at Castilleja boarding school in Palo Alto CA, graduating in 1947. For the next four years she attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, earning a BA in political science (1951). In December of 1950 she married West Point alumnus Kenneth L. Moll from Oakdale CA, then serving in the U.S. Air Force. Over the next three years she lived with her husband in Japan while he completed a tour of duty as fighter pilot in the Korean War. Her eldest son, Kenneth L. Moll Jr., was born there in February of 1953. From 1954 to 1959, the family lived in Novato CA, where her husband was stationed at Hamilton Air Force Base. During this time she had two other children, Kevin N. Moll (b. July 1954) and Nancy Moll Haynes (b. March 1957). From early 1959 to mid-1961, Marilyn and her family resided in Brigg, England, where Kenneth Sr. was attached as liaison officer to the RAF, implementing the Thor strategic missile program. Marilyn welcomed this opportunity to live among the British people, and always held that the experience was beneficial to her children. Having returned to the USA in June of 1961, the family lived in Bellevue NE for the next six years, where Marilyn's husband was assigned to Offutt Air Force Base—headquarters of Strategic Air Command. In 1967, she received a Master's degree in history from the University of Omaha. In that same year Kenneth Sr. was reassigned to the Pentagon and in the Spring the family moved to Alexandria VA. It was in this locale that Marilyn lived for the next 54 years. In 1975 her oldest son, Kenny, died under tragic circumstances at the age of 22. Her husband Kenneth Sr., who had retired from the Air Force in 1975, died in 2013. During these years of retirement, Marilyn actively resumed her historical interests, giving a series of public talks on figures from the Civil War period and the early 20th century, focusing especially on Ulysses S. Grant and Woodrow Wilson. With her son Kevin teaching in the state university system of neighboring North Carolina, Marilyn was able to visit regularly with him, his sons Alex and Andrew, and then-daughter in law Melanie, with whom she had a lasting friendship. In 2021 Marilyn relocated to an assisted living facility in White River Junction VT, near to her daughter Nancy. She spent her last four years there in secure and happy independence, attending social and cultural events, and enjoying visits from family and friends. Always an avid reader, Marilyn was an excellent student, scholar, and conversationalist, accomplished in piano, foreign languages, and history. Her master's thesis, entitled "Count and Democrat: Brockdorff-Rantzau as the Weimar Republic's First Foreign Minister," is an exemplary and original work of scholarship, which has retained its value through the decades. In 2017 it was made available communally through ProQuest publications. In March of 2025, Marilyn received special recognition for this accomplishment in a newsletter published by the History Department of the University of Nebraska at Omaha. On June 17, 2025 she celebrated her 96th birthday among a small group of friends and family, including grandson Andrew, visiting from San Diego CA. According to what she said at the time it was perhaps the happiest birthday she had ever known. Only a few days later (June 29, 2025) she died in Hanover, NH after a brief illness. Interment will be scheduled at Arlington National Cemetary. [7/03]