Marion L. Marshall; Loved Golf and Politics

Ventura resident Marion L. Marshall died in an Oxnard nursing home Thursday after a long illness. She was 89.

Marshall was born July 16, 1909, in Rochester, N.Y. She was an avid golfer and also enjoyed needlepoint and politics, said her son Robert of Ventura.

“She was a pretty good golfer--she shot in the 90s,” he said.

Robert Marshall also remembers that a young, charismatic Irish senator was enough to persuade his mother to change her lifelong affiliation with the Republican Party.

He said his mother helped organize the presidential campaigns in western New York for John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. “She liked the Kennedys. She was Irish,” he said.

Marion Marshall moved to Florida in the early 1970s after the retirement of her husband, Charles.

A former banker with Central Trust Co. in Rochester, Charles helped finance the Jockey Club in Miami, a 13-story condominium complex, a few years later.

Upon her husband’s death in 1978, Marion Marshall moved to Concord in Northern California to be near her daughter. Two years ago, she moved to Ventura County and was a resident of the Ventura Townehouse senior complex.

In addition to Robert Marshall, she is survived by another son, Richard Marshall of Yorktown Heights, N.Y.; daughter Jeanne Marshall of Walnut Creek; sister Genevieve Pethick of Rochester, N.Y., nine grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

A memorial Mass will be said at 10 a.m. Friday at Sacred Heart Church in Ventura. Interment will follow at Ivy Lawn Memorial Park in Ventura.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks for contributions to the National Parkinson’s Foundation Inc., 1501 N.W. 9th Ave., Miami, FL 33136.

Ventura County obituaries are published free of charge as a public service to readers. Obituaries are based on information provided by mortuaries.