Marilyn Foster

Born Marilyn Hope Coxhead in Denver, Colorado, Marilyn grew up between 6th and 7th Avenues on Josephine Street with her older brother Jack and her parents, John Wallace and Mary Johnson Coxhead.

As a teenager, Marilyn attended school at San Luis Ranch School in Colorado Springs where she learned, among other things, the love for and discipline of caring for horses. She went to school at the University of Colorado where she was a Kappa Kappa Gamma. There she had a number of beaus until one day she dropped by to return something her mother had borrowed from Katharine McNeely Foster. Wallin G. Foster, visiting his parents after being wounded in WWII, answered the door. They were married at The Church of the Ascension on July 20, 1946.

They had 5 children - Sherry Eastlund and Neel, Wally, Rick and Peter Foster. She has 12 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren - all of whom are now grieving their loss.

In addition to raising 5 children, Marilyn loved her time volunteering in community organizations. In Alice in Wonderland, put on by the Junior League of Denver, she was the Cheshire cat. Her smile in the play was quite haunting to her kids, but normally it was full of joy and love.

In retirement, Marilyn and Wallin bought a house in Tucson which afforded them many happy winters which that spent together gardening, picnicking, birdwatching and enjoying the desert. There they shared good times with both their family and friends.

Wallin had Parkinson Disease for many years prior to his passing in June of 2000. Marilyn stood beside him those many years - loving and supporting him. In the latter stages of his disease she would get up multiple times each night to help him turn over. Upon his death she said, "I've never known a finer man."

Shortly before his death, they moved to Park Place where Marilyn grew to be "a kind of institution" according to one of her friends there. She frequently said that this move was one of the reasons she knew that she was in God's care. She did not have to face moving without her husband and was surrounded by friends and support when he died. She headed up the committee overseeing Park Place's landscaping and the placing of flowers the tables in the dining room.

As a widow for the 15 years, Marilyn continued to stay active with friends, both old and new - luncheons, bridge games, her Bible study group that began decades ago and continues to this day. She had a strong faith in God and always pushed to go deeper in her understanding of and relation with Jesus. She began each day in God's Word and in contemplation. She loved Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating and received the Center for Action and Contemplation's Daily Meditation on her Kindle Fire which she painstakingly learned to use to keep up with the family emails. But for reading, she preferred to hold a "real" book, which she did most every night before bed.

Marilyn was vibrant and active up to her last day.

Here are some thoughts of her from her grandchildren's perspective:

"Granner had baby blue eyes full of wisdom and compassion. She lived by letting God live through her - always choosing to love and forgive. All family and friends were blessed to encounter her humor, wit, love and social intelligence. Through reading she never stopped learning and sharing."

"She has joined Boppa, the love of her life, but we will greatly miss her wonderful smile, her sense of humor and her big heart."

There will be a celebration of her life at Park Place on Sunday January 3, 2016 from 2 to 4 PM. Her ashes will be placed, together with Wallin's, on the family's mountain property in Cliffdale, CO.

Marilyn was a fond supporter of the Boys and Girls Club of Denver, the American Parkinson Disease Association, the Denver Leadership Foundation and the Downing House which was started by her close friend Martha Dell Lewis. Memorial gifts may be given to any of these fine organizations.