A life well lived

When Marian Tuttle-Crum’s family comes to visit their mother-in-law, grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother this Mother’s Day weekend, they will celebrate a milestone few people live to see — Marian’s 100th birthday.

“For Marian’s entire life, she has loved children,” Marian’s daughter-in-law, Donna Pearson, told the Post-Record this week, a few days before Marian’s birthday on May 10.

Marian used to tell her family she should write a book called, “Call Me Nana,” Donna said.

“She cared for my children and my granddaughters along with numerous neighbor children and children of family friends,” Donna said. “She always said (children) kept her young, and I’m sure that is the secret to her long life.”

On May 3, one week before Marian’s birthday, her granddaughter, Karen Reisenauer, great-granddaughter, Miranda Reisenauer, and two great-great-granddaughters, 6-year-old Savannah and 4-year-old Nicole, all of Camas, gathered around their family matriarch at the Prestige Care and Rehabilitation Center, where Marian has lived since 2016.

“She was always about the kids,” Karen, 53, said of her grandmother. “I was a young mother, and she was right there, taking care of my daughter, Miranda, when she was only 3 months old. We saw each other every day.”

Miranda, 27, said she learned to “never leave family behind,” from her great-grandmother.

“Nana never judged her grandkids. She was always there for us,” Miranda said. “And she was adamant that family came first.”

Marian’s life began on May 10, 1919, in Los Angeles. The eldest of four children, Marian knew who she was from a very young age.

“Her parents named her Evelyn Marian White, but she never liked the name Evelyn,” Donna said. “At an early age, she started calling herself Marian and, to my knowledge, was never called Evelyn again.”

At one week shy of 100 years old, Marian still remembers the close bond she had with her younger sister, Barbara.

“We all called her Barbie,” Marian said. “She was the athlete. I was the artist.”

As a young mother raising three sons in the Los Angeles area, Marian used her artistic talents to her benefit, opening her own home-based business designing and painting baby announcements and cards that she sold in stores nationwide.

“I had employees, mostly men, and they couldn’t draw an original picture,” Marian recalled. “I would do it and they would copy mine.”

Marian married four times in her life, but her family said “the love of her life” was her first husband, Jack Tuttle, whom she met thanks to her mother.

“Her mother had been shopping (at a Los Angeles grocery store) and met the the new clerk in the produce department,” Donna recalled. “She went home and told Marian about him and the rest was history.”