Marcia Egan

Marcia was born on March 31, 1922, the youngest child of Mary Dott Stay and Mahonri Moriancumer White. She lived out her childhood and most of her years on the acreage homesteaded by her grandparents, Edward and Eliza White. Marcia reared her own eleven children on the same family acres. On that homestead plot (“White Farm”) Marcia thrived in genial community with parents, neighbors, siblings, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Marcia covered a lot of ground during a well-nigh perfect life. As a farm-girl, she acquainted herself with the hardscrabble existence of her forebears, leading cows to water and helping Mahonri with the harvests. One year after high school she married Merritt Egan in an era when a woman, once married, was expected to stay at home, which is what Marcia did with gusto. Their lifelong love knew precious little friction and acrimony. She welcomed Merritt’s confident synthesis of science and faith and his willingness to cope deftly with rearing seven sons and four daughters. They played feisty tennis, camped in the Uinta Mountains, and toured the globe. Marcia extended the family values of her childhood to her own home of warmth and activity, welcoming to her abode many children from less animated homes. Untouched by feminism, she shunned vain competition with men and put her energy into creating a world for her family and molding her own unique persona. Indeed, her pursuit of a lively and affectionate family life trumped obsessing over the decorum of her domicile. As she managed a clean and spirited household, she sometimes found herself stretched too thin to anguish deeply over a deficit of cooking prowess. What her teeming home lacked in primness or stifling etiquette it offered amply in joie de vivre. Marcia drew both neighbors and strangers into her domain with an unforgettable welcome.

Marcia grew old with resolve and verve. Her children grew up in the shadow of her enthusiasms. They did so amid a clutter of laundry, toys, and dishes, observing a mother who, despite the quotidian muddle, refused to lapse into home-maker drudgery, anonymity, and stagnation of spirit. At home she applied the message from Proverbs 22:6, believing faithfully that if she trained children in the way they should go, they would not depart from it later. She taught her children by example and emphasized that God “delighteth in the song of the heart” (D&C 25:12). The baby-grand piano sat in a parlor off-limits to raucous play where Marcia frequently led the family in songs. With flamboyance undiminished by middling talent, she often played simple hymns and piano pieces, before which unsuspecting listeners often marveled at her apparent ability to play by ear. She and Merritt established a family hymn (How Firm a Foundation), urging loved-ones to “fear not,” imparting the message that “if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.” (Alma 56:47-48)

Marcia, despite sharing a birthday with René Descartes, dropped out of college to marry. Although she lacked the scholarly thinking of someone privileged with a formal education, she cultivated nonetheless a certain blithe, unfussy eloquence. On the lookout for a clever expression or an apt foreign phrase, she spoke with the histrionic gestures of someone who knows her deeper self. A voracious reader of contemporary nonfiction, her copious notes in the margins of best sellers informed her views on the central issues of the day. One conversation with Marcia solidly demonstrated her sharp mind and practical wisdom. Unfettered from the biases of academe, Marcia preferred to filter world affairs, historical facts, contemporary morality, and scientific advances through a world view steeped in her own interpretations and conjectures on Mormon culture, prophecy, and doctrine. Marcia believed her life responded to the admonition to “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). Indeed, few creatures escaped her notice. She fervently disarmed strangers with lighthearted garrulity and baffled unsuspecting non-Mormons with glib quotations from the holy writ as they coalesced around her beliefs. Old age failed to moderate her zeal. Through it all, in much that she propounded God’s grace attended her. Some of her children inherited her exuberance. All became reacquainted with her later in life, when weekly one-on-one visits nurtured more intimacy than was possible during the years of distraction and endless adjustment to the throng of family and visitors.

With scant opportunity for a private life, Marcia lacked the leisure and the inclination to become a suit-hat-and-pearls woman. Instead, she became the ultimate conversationalist and fun-loving entertainer. She usually assumed an audience and frequently got one. She could win over almost anybody, whether impressing the judges when she twice took state in debate at Granite High School, leading cub scouts as a den mother in the 1950s, or strumming a ukulele before a swarm of school children at Tiananmen Square. It required no coaxing for Marcia to tap-dance with granddaughters at a Christmas party or to don cowgirl or tennis outfits; and, in 1982, she and her sixth son, Michael, won the Tribune mother-son No Champs Tennis Tournament. In her last years she urged visitors to play Casino (a game with Rook cards), to assist with crossword puzzles, play piano duets, and to discuss gospel-centered solutions to the human plight. Such were her sources of lasting happiness. In the end, with impaired sight and hearing, fading memory, and barely ambulatory, Marcia grew impatient and a bit dismayed that the angels demurred so long in coming for her.

She did not keep a diary, but in 2002 completed two books—White Acres, a combination memoir and family yearbook, and Dear Gabrielle, an epistolary short story. Both were published with unabashed intent to impress the masses and convert the gentile. Her final para-literary project was a collection of admonitions, promoting causes shaded liberally with religious zeal and her own interpretations on LDS theology.

Her parents, seven siblings, and Merritt preceded her in death. She is survived by 66 grandchildren, 142 great-grandchildren, and by her own children: Winston (Linda), Wayne (Kathryn), Robin (Mary), Kathleen Voorhees (Hugh), Richard (Sue), Marsha Dott Ralphs (Lenny), Dwight (Leslie), Michael (Mary), Heather Hyde (Rod), Talmage (Julie), and Natalie Gochnour (Chris). Her posterity will miss her generosity, panache, and affection. Friends and family are invited to celebrate Marcia’s life at noon on Saturday, August 15, at Wilford Stake Center (1765 East 3080 South, SLC UT) (viewing 10:30-11:30 a.m.). The family will also greet guests on Friday, August 14, at the Wasatch Lawn Mortuary from 6 to 8 p.m. (3401 Highland Drive, SLC, UT).