Marilyn Joan Pollard

Marilyn Joan (Craft) Pollard was born March 2nd, 1933 in Chicago to Harold and Marion Craft. It was the height of The Depression, and this colored her life in many ways. She saved everything: pencil stubs, rubber bands, bread bags--you name it. However, she did use some of those bread bags with her young children's shoes as makeshift boots during sudden deep snows or gullywasher rainstorms.

She moved to Bremerton with her family, where her father, like many of the time, found work in the Navy shipyard repairing and fitting ships for WWII. In her early teens, the family moved to Gulfport Mississippi, where she liked the food, but disliked the weather and bugs. Marilyn begged and begged, and eventually was allowed to return to Bremerton on her own for her senior year of high school so she could graduate with her friends.

After graduation, she got a job in the typing pool at the Bremerton Puget Power office where she caught the eye of a certain young engineer who saved his reports until Miss Craft was up in the rotation to type them. He gave her a ride home from the bus stop one rainy day, and that was the start of the romance that filled her life for many years until she was widowed in 1996.

Marilyn married Raymond, that young engineer, and became Marilyn Pollard in 1953. They lived in Bremerton for the first few years of marriage, and had daughters Karen in 1955 and Pamela in 1957. They moved to the Robinswood neighborhood in Bellevue when Raymond got transferred to the main Puget Power offices, and had daughters Melanie in 1959 and Valerie in 1965.

The family moved to Olympia for a time, then back to Bellevue, this time to the Cougar Hills neighborhood, with Raymond's job. Marilyn lived there for some thirty years before making a new home in the Water Gardens community in Maple Valley, where she lived fiercely independently until 2025 when she moved to assisted living in Enumclaw to be closer to her family.

Marilyn was a faithful churchgoer, and through her life was a member of Memorial Lutheran church in Bremerton, Trinity Lutheran church in Olympia, Christ the King, Gloria Dei, and Pilgrim Lutheran churches in Bellevue, and Peace Lutheran church in Maple Valley. She participated in, and led, many church activities, and found contentment and fellowship within each of the congregations she joined.

Music, particularly church choir and singing hymns, was a big part of Marilyn's life for a long time. She always had comments--mostly kept to herself--regarding the selection of the hymns at every church service. She was not a fan of modern arrangements, or jazzing around on a theme. This keen interest eventually evolved to becoming a member of the choir, then choir director at Christ the King, then an

Bellevue College when she was in her 50s. Marilyn had perfect pitch, sang beautifully, played the piano all her life, and even learned the violin after her children left home.

Marilyn enjoyed cooking and baking, and was a good and often adventurous cook. She clipped recipes from the newspaper and magazines, and was always trying something new on her family--mostly to good effect, but there were some clunkers along the way. Garlic was avoided at all costs, but anything chocolate, the richer the better, was A-OK in her book.

Music and cooking weren't Marilyn's only creative outlets, she sewed and crocheted, and enjoyed needlepoint and crewel embroidery. She was known to privately dabble in a little poetry on occasion. Marilyn also expressed her creativity with themed Christmas trees and handmade ornaments.

The phrase "voracious reader" suited Marilyn to a T. She particularly enjoyed mysteries and thrillers, and she passed her love of reading onto her daughters. Marilyn loved it all, from cozy mysteries to twisty psychological thrillers to hard-edged spy novels. She eagerly awaited new books from favorite authors. She also enjoyed word games, puns, crosswords and word searches, and her day always started with a cup of tea, reading the newspaper, and solving the daily puzzles.

Marilyn really enjoyed to travel, mostly car trips around the western US, but also all across the country and even dipping into Iceland, Canada, Mexico, and beyond. Among her adventures were a mail boat ride up the Rogue River, a snow cat ride onto a glacier, a bus ride into a coal mine, and a cruise ship ride through the Panama Canal. Family vacations became romantic retirement trips with Raymond, and then turned into traveling with her beloved cousin Joan, first on cruises and tours, then in her later years trips to wineries and casinos. She particularly enjoyed travel that included beautiful vistas of mountains, oceans, flowers, and waterfalls, or tours that educated about history, glassmaking, or winemaking.

Marilyn is survived by her cousin Joan Green; daughter Karen Pollard-Lynn, son-in-law Jim Lynn and grandsons Kenny Keller and Zach Silverton; daughter Pamela Zeleznik (deceased), son-in-law Rick Zeleznik and granddaughters Dawn Zeleznik (m. Ryan Mallow) and Mindi Sneed (m. Alex Sneed); daughter Melanie Mobley, son-in-law Dave and granddaughters Meagan Wiseman (m. Matt Wiseman), Molly Mobley, Emily Mobley, and Christine Mobley; daughter Valerie Predmore and son-in-law Alan Predmore; and great-grandchildren Matilda Wiseman, Teddy Wiseman, and Scarlett Wiseman.

In lieu of flowers, please donate to a local foodbank, friends of the library, or children's music programs in remembrance of Marilyn's life interests.