Marilyn Annilee Bagnell

Marilyn was born October 28, 1924, in Kansas City, Missouri to Gordon W. and Ethel E. Byler and grew up in Kansas City in the home at 2309 Myrtle. She was the eldest of their two daughters; both parents and her younger sister Susan preceded her in death.

Marilyn played the mellophone in high school and attended Missouri Valley College in Marshall, Missouri, studying to be a music teacher. During World War II, she moved to Leadville, Colorado, with her parents where her father had been involved in the construction of Camp Hale and became its Civilian Recreation Director while Marilyn was employed in the payroll department. Camp Hale, located high in the Rocky Mountains, became the base for the 15,000 ski troops of the US Army’s 10th Mountain Division.

During her studies at Missouri Valley College, she met her future husband, Thomas Henry Bagnell, who was operating his family’s Elk Hill farm near Nelson, Missouri. They were married September 26, 1945, and Marilyn, a Kansas City girl, became a devoted farm wife. Marilyn and Tom Bagnell lived on the Bagnell family property until buying a farm near Wooldridge in Cooper County in spring of 1954. Four children were born, Jean, Daniel, Mary, and Nancy.

Marilyn remained on their farm until moving to Rocheport, Missouri. In 2000 she toured Europe by car using the Michelin guidebook series, accompanied by her daughters Jean Howell and Mary Natali. In Europe they were hosted and driven by son Daniel Bagnell, who at that time was living in Brittany, France for American aerospace defense company Northrop Grumman.

In her later years while living in Rocheport, Marilyn turned to her original interest as a teacher and began taking students in her home, teaching keyboard and piano skills on her classic Hammond B3 organ. Working with her young students became a major source of joy.

Marilyn was a dedicated Christian and for most of her life attended the Baptist Church in Wooldridge where she had many friends. Through her paternal line, which included connections to innumerable local families going back to an Amish ancestor, Jakob Byler, who’d emigrated from Switzerland to Pennsylvania in 1737, she had so many relatives in the Boonslick area of central Missouri that her husband often remarked that he’d given up trying to remember who was related to who and just addressed everyone as “cousin”.

She is survived by daughters Jean Howell and Mary Natali, and son, Daniel Bagnell. Daughter Nancy Bagnell preceded her in death.