Born April 4, 1937
Dawson, Minnesota
Died June 1, 2024
Burlington, Vermont
Details of services
Visitation hours with the family will be held at the Ready Funeral Home on Pinecrest Drive in Essex from 4:00-7:00 on July 10. A memorial service will be held at 11:00 on July 11 at the North Avenue Alliance Church campus in Burlington, with internment to follow at Jericho Center Cemetery at approximately 1:00. The family would appreciate anyone attending any of the events, to share their memories of Marlys, and join in singing her favorite hymns.
Jericho — Marlys June Willeford joined the angels in Heaven on June 1, 2024.
She was born on April 4, 1937 in Dawson, Minnesota, the daughter of Reuben and Gladys (Brown) Lehman.
She was co-valedictorian in high school in Alexandria, Minnesota, received her Associate’s degree from Bethel College, and her Bachelor’s degree from Colorado State University.
She married Allen Willeford on June 6, 1964 at First Baptist Church in Alexandria, Minnesota.
She worked at Glacier National Park in Montana, in the accounting department at General Mills headquarters in Minneapolis, and part-time at the U.S. Census Bureau, but was a deeply devoted full-time wife and mother as she raised her family in Jericho, Vermont. She was proud of her children and grandchildren, she rarely missed one of her son Tim’s baseball or basketball games, and was especially pleased with her grandson Parker’s visits to Vermont over the last few years.
She designed her own dresses, loved hiking and biking, gardening, and cooking from scratch from thousands of recipes. She liked sewing, quilting, decorating and crafting, and participated in sewing conferences around the country. She composed her own poetry to send to close friends and family through the years.
She was a volunteer for many decades, teaching reading in first grade at Jericho Elementary School, as a mentor for Pioneer Girls, and served as church librarian for nearly forty years with her dear friends at North Avenue Alliance Church in Burlington.
She was the planner and navigator of annual vacations, visiting all 48 continental United States by car together with her husband. She traveled through Europe in 1962, and again three times later in life, when she finally saw the Christmas markets in Germany and visited Prague with her granddaughters. She also visited Ecuador and the Galapagos, as well as Israel. She collected many hundreds of children’s books from her visits around the world.
Her largest hobby later in life was genealogy, and she proudly traced her family history back to the Mayflower in 1620, in England before that, and from German Prussia in the 1800s.
She was a woman of deep faith in God, and she was a fighter, having previously survived cancer, heart disease, and stroke, until God finally called her home.
She was predeceased by her son Brent in 2009, by her brother Kendall in 2016, and by her parents and grandparents.
She is survived by her husband Allen, her son Tim, five grandchildren, many nieces and nephews and her cousin Carole, and their families.
Visitation hours with the family will be held at the Ready Funeral Home on Pinecrest Drive in Essex from 4:00-7:00 on July 10. A memorial service will be held at 11:00 on July 11 at the North Avenue Alliance Church campus in Burlington, with internment to follow at Jericho Center Cemetery at approximately 1:00. The family would appreciate anyone attending any of the events, to share their memories of Marlys, and join in singing her favorite hymns.
To send online condolences, please visit www.readyfuneral.com.