Marian Hall, wife of La Canada Valley Sun founder

Marian Hall, whose late husband Dixi Gail Hall founded the La Cañada Valley Sun, died Jan. 20 in Woodland Hills. She was 99.

Born Marian Brown in Medford, Ore. on Oct. 1, 1911, she and Hall were wed in 1933 in Michigan. In 1946 the couple moved to a home on Craig Avenue in La Cañada, just as the area was transitioning from rural farmland to a Los Angeles suburb. The parents of two, they recognized a need for school news to be delivered to local residents. That led Dixi Hall, a commercial artist, to launch the weekly newspaper on April 3 of that year with the full support of Marian.

“There was a lack of news coverage in the community and the citizens wanted to know what was going on,” Dixi Hall was quoted as saying when the paper marked its 50th anniversary in 1996. He was a part-time publisher, as he kept his job as an artist for a downtown Los Angeles advertising agency.

In 1949 the couple sold the Valley Sun to Joe DuPlain and relocated to Laguna Beach. There, Dixi owned an art gallery, participated in the Pageant of Masters and exhibited his work each year at the Festival of the Arts.

“It has been said time and time again that behind every great man there is an even greater woman…and my grandmother worked to support my grandfather’s interests mainly,” said Hall’s granddaughter Renee Hall. “She was a secretary at one of the schools in Laguna and she took in piecework sewing in order to make ends meet.”

In 1980 the Halls moved from Laguna Beach to Warner Springs and later to Dana Point.

While in her 70s, Marian took a trip around the world on her own. “This was one of the most important things she did in her life,” Renee Hall said. “I think it was really a liberating moment in her life.”

Marian was preceded in death by her husband and by both of their sons, Charles and Peter. She is survived by six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

A celebration of her life will be private.

— Carol Cormaci