Oh, Dr. Marlin!
Dr. Marlin, patient man, was on my Ph. D. committee.
Sounded gruff, but was kind to us grad students.

I can hear him cracking jokes about sports in the math dept faculty lounge, contrary to the stereotype of math professors being "above" such interests.

Sorry for your loss. Joe was such a great guy.

I adopted Crema Coffee as my base of operations in 2008 when I needed a place to work from home that wasn’t actually my house. It took me very little time to get to know Joe, who stood out amongst the other Crema regulars as one of the most genuinely friendly people I've ever met.

To this day I'm still at Crema 4/7 mornings of the week, and over the past 17 years I've spent untold hours with Joe. We talked about everything. Current events, Missouri, math, engineering, politics, crossword puzzles, our families, and so many other random topics. He rarely missed a morning (and often also afternoon) at Crema, and during the time we overlapped in a given day, I rarely actually got any work done. And that was great. He smiled almost perpetually, and he knew everybody. Not just their names - but their kids names. And where they went on vacation. And their hobbies. He remembered everything people told him about themselves, and shared equally about himself in return. It was just so easy to know and like Joe.

Joe has been a part of my daily life for nearly two decades, and has made it so much richer with his friendship. I will miss him dearly. Wherever Joe is now, I hope he has a small double shot latte with regular milk, and that he finally figures out how to prove the Reimann hypothesis. Love you, my friend.

Joe and I were/are Marines that served in Korea and Japan in the mid fifties. We kept in touch off and on over the years. In 2019 I visited him in NC a year or so later he visited my wife and me in Arizona. I showed him some of Arizona and even took in a Spring Training game. 
Who would have thought two 19 year old Marine Corporals would eventually get PhD’s, he in math me in physics . But there is now one a US senator and also a Vice President elect. Must be something in the water. 
I’ll miss Joe, I won’t have anybody to commiserate with about the current state of politics.

Condolence for all Dr. Marlin's family and friends.

Some of my memories:
Dr. Joe Marlin was a wonderful mentor, advisor and professor.  He was one of my teaching advisors when I was working on my masters at NCSU.  Although I did not have a class with him, he advised me on my master's project on the Singular Value Decomposition Theorem.  When I decided to return to NCSU to work on a PhD, he was in charge of scheduling classes for the mathematics department.  Somehow, the courses I needed for the qualifying exams fit my full-time schedule teaching at JCC.  And, all the classes had the very best professors teaching them.  Coincidence, maybe but not in my eyes.  I did have the pleasure of taking Calculus on Manifolds, prior to starting the qualifying courses, and Ordinary Differential Equations with him.  DE was his field, but not mine.  It saddened me that I would not be working with him on my PhD.  That did work out well, with another great mentor, Dr. Ernie Stitzinger.  Dr. Marlin remained a mentor and advisor for the rest of my time at NCSU.  In August, I had the privilege of having lunch with both of these wonderul mentors, and others.  His sense of humor was as strong as ever.   I carried the Spring 2024 issue of the magazine of NC State with his quote about Dr. Struble.  I teased him about signing it for me and he had a humorous comment in response.  He will be missed by many!

Peggy Batten

OBITUARY

Joe Alton Marlin

July 3, 1935 – January 12, 2025

Brown-Wynne Funeral Home

Show your support

Add a Memory

Share Obituary

Get Reminders

Services