Marion Josephine Gentry

Marion Josephine Gentry was a caretaker and creator. A child of the Great Depression, she grew up with a charitable spirit and an innate appreciation of family and friends — a love she passed on to her own kids and the generations that followed. With a keen sense of morality and an easy smile, she led a family that, to her joy, kept growing. On April 7, 2020, Marion died at the age of 93.

She was born in Ogden, Utah, on March 18, 1927, to Beatrice and Raymond Deru, and her family moved to Los Angeles looking for work when Marion was a young girl. There, she met Thomas Charles Gentry, the man she’d call honey for the rest of her life, her husband for 66 years until his death in 2014.

Marion was one of three children and is survived by her sister Evelyn Scoccia. Her brother, Douglas Deru, preceded her in death. Marion graduated from Catholic Girls High in Los Angeles. She enrolled in dental assistant school during World War II while her boyfriend, Tom, was overseas with the Navy.

The couple wed upon Tom’s return, in 1947, and had five children: Yvonne Marie Maire (Joseph), Catherine Gentry Duchon (Reid Thebault), Diana Gentry Broome (Michael Carrington), Mary Gentry Roberts (Michael) and Thomas Charles Gentry II, who preceded his mother in death.

Marion was a skilled craftswoman, and for years she handmade the dresses of her three eldest daughters. She was deft with a sewing machine and a needle and thread, and she could weave discarded cloth into pieces elegant or useful. Marion was also an inventive cook, whose spaghetti and cheese dip recipes are prized family secrets. Following her handwritten directions, far-flung family members have taken to the kitchen to recreate her specialties when looking for a reminder of home.

She raised children across five decades. Then, while her youngest was in grade school, she welcomed the first of her nine grandchildren. Marion taught her grandkids to shoot a basketball, play pool and to love the orange shag carpet that covered the floor of the Rockford, Illinois, home where she and Tom lived for 43 years. She wrote cards on holidays and called on birthdays. If you didn’t answer, she’d sing “Happy Birthday” to your voicemail.

Marion was selfless, a Catholic who really meant it. And she was kind.

Marion will be deeply missed — but her memory celebrated and cherished — by her children, her grandchildren, her five great grandchildren, her many nieces and nephews, and her best friend, Grace Domenici.

For the two years they were apart during the war, Marion and Tom wrote to each other constantly. In romantic prose, Tom told his wife-to-be, “I sure will be lucky to get a wife like you. I love you more than anyone in this world.” In one of her last letters to him before he returned, Marion wrote, simply: “Please come home soon so we can start our life together.” Now, they’re together again.