Mary "Marylou" Louise Zahniser

The world lost one of its kindest and gentlest people on Thursday morning, November 5th, 2026 when Marylou Zahniser (née Mary Louise Clayton) passed away at Trinity Healthcare Hospital, in Muskegon, Michigan.

Marylou was born on June 13th, 1939 in Sharon, Pennsylvania…Tuesday’s child and she was certainly filled with grace! She never really bonded with her parents…her father George Clayton died while she was still in swaddling clothes and being the youngest of five, her mother Julia (née Batthyány) could not care for them alone. So, Marylou, along with her 4 older siblings: George, Harry, Jimmy and sister Daisy, were raised by the Roman Catholic Church Saint Joseph’s Home for Children in Erie, Pennsylvania until she was around 8 years old…moving back home to Sharon, PA and collected a few more siblings along the way: Elaine (Klumph) married to Bill, Sandy (née) Jane (Megyesi) and George Kaye, Jr.

After a difficult childhood in the 1940s and 1950s, Marylou found her lifelong love in Jim (James Lee) Zahniser. They married on March 1, 1957, and shared their lives until his untimely passing in early summer of 1998 at age 62. They are now reunited, forever at peace.

Marylou leaves behind her four sons, Terry Lee, Jeffrey Leslie, Kevin Bryan (Wife, Robin Marie), and James William; above sisters Daisy, Elaine and Sandy, brother George Allen Kaye; grand children Jessie Lee & Kevin James; also, Doris Sembera of Houston, Texas, Jay and Katie Miller of Tempe, Arizona, Diane and Mike Ohlsen of Wooster, Ohio; as well as many, many friends who have loved her kind and gentle soul throughout her somewhat nomadic family life from Pennsylvania, Ohio and finally to Michigan. Many nieces and nephews, as well!

Marylou loved making and giving away jewelry to her family and friends…as well as passersby. Remembering her giving one she was wearing because someone out of the blue commented on how beautiful her bracelet was. She loved flowers and plant (perennial and annual) gardening…she’s now gardening for God! Her artistic talents were many…as well as with sketching with an eye for the depth of the subject. Ceramics, jewelry, gardening and drawing were just of few of her artistic gifts.

Burial will be on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, at 12:00 pm at Sunrise Memorial Gardens in Muskegon.

“Death leaves a heartache no one can heal; love leaves a memory no one can steal.” -- Irish Proverb

"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.” – Thomas Campbell

“What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” – Helen Keller