Marian Grace Barhitte

Marian Barhitte

June 24, 1917 - April 29, 2017

Marian was just two months shy of her 100th birthday. She passed away peacefully several minutes after eating a good breakfast. Marian is survived by siblings Bob Bair, Yvonne Hadley, Kenneth Bair, and Evelyn Ables, children Grace Harris, Harriet McLeod, Lyle, James, Eugene, and Richard Barhitte, 12 grandchildren, many great-grandchildren, and several great-great-grandchildren.

Marian was born June 24, 1917 in Kalamazoo Michigan. She married Henry Vere Barhitte on April 3, 1936 in South Bend, Indiana. In the fall of 1949 Marian and Vere moved to Washington with 4 children and one on the way. Marian wanted to get away from all of the Michigan snow. It just happened that the winter of 1949-50 was one of the snowiest in Southwest Washington history. In 1954, they purchased a home in Ridgefield, Washington.

Marian was a member of the Grange for many years. For several years, around 1964 she was grandma in grandma's kitchen in the Grange building at the Clark County Fair. She would cook doughnuts in an electric deep fat fryer hidden in a pot on the wood stove in the exhibit. However, at home she cooked for her family and heated the house with a real wood burning stove. She would even get up before everyone else and start the fire to warm the house before anyone else got up.

Marian was a very good mother. She read nursery rhyme stories and sang to her children. She always saw to it that we had enough to eat even if that meant making corn meal mush from government surplus when times were hard. In the summer, she would grow food for the family in the garden. There were several years when she would take the younger boys to pick beans for the local farmers to earn a little extra money. She would team up with the youngest Richard. Richard would pick those he could reach and then she would come back on his side of the row and pick those he could not reach and make sure he picked the row clean. In the evenings after supper she would read the comics from the newspaper to her children.

Having grown up in the depression Marian never wanted to throw anything out if it could still be used. There was one time when she had some dish towels that were so thread bare that they could hardly dry a glass without being too wet to dry another. We had a hard time convincing her it was time to throw them out. Another time she had a stack of newspapers that she would not let us get rid of until she had read them cover to cover.

Marian enjoyed traveling and walking. After her husband, Henry Vere Barhitte died she took many trips, some were fairly local with the Grange Campers Club. Other longer trips were with her daughter Harriet or son Richard. She enjoyed getting out and walking to see the sights. When she was in her 70's she would walk 20 miles in the March of Dines Walk-a-Thon. She also enjoyed bowling in a league. Although her average was about 100, she did manage to bowl at least one 200 game. In the early 1960's Marian learned to decorate cakes and for many years she would decorate cakes for family functions.