Pauline Margaret Walter Marsh, a resident at 1310 Birch Avenue, Richland since 1950, died of congestive heart failure February 10 at Tri Cities Chaplaincy Hospice House in Kennewick WA. Her daughter, Mary Clizbe, was by her side. Pauline’s son and live-in caregiver, Anthony “Tony” Barton Marsh, had preceded her in death by four days.

Pauline was born to Paul Otto Walter and Margaret Rosa Labiche Walter on November 13, 1919 in Kennet CA. Her father was a telegrapher for the Southern Pacific Railroad, and the family moved from state to state in the 1920s: Oregon, British Columbia, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, then back to Oregon where she met and married Barton Walter Marsh in 1937. His family owned and operated a small sawmill near Brookings OR. Daughter Mary was born in Crescent City CA in 1939. The family moved to a house on Thayer in Richland during the early days of WWII, then to Yakima where Pauline and Barton work in Libby’s fruit packing plant. After WWII they returned briefly to the Brookings area to raise sheep and lily bulbs a bad combination when sheep ate the bulbs packed and stacked for shipment. Her husband decided not to be a farmer so they returned to Richland, where Barton was part of the huge construction crew building the Hanford plants, working his way up to plant manager. In 1950 they moved into a newly-constructed Y-house on Birch. Five years later, son Anthony was born at Kadlec Hospital. For long years Pauline was an active parishioner at Christ the King and had fond memories of Father Sweeney and the original church building with its interior decorations of gold painted fleur de lis.

She was very artistic, involving herself in a variety of crafts: baking, writing, sketching, and playing her harmonicas. With an enquiring mind, she was a voracious reader on a wide range of subjects: history, theology, mythology, architecture, etc. She put this information to good use in a large volume of fairy tales she started writing in the 1950s, a passion that occupied much of her time for decades. Off an on over the years, folks would drop by to visit and talk about the stories she used to tell them as children under the huge sycamore tree in her front yard.

Her daughter Mary recalls the many fishing and camping trips the family took, their hobby of rock “hounding”, the succession of cats her mother always had around she never could turn away a stray, the pride Pauline had in the rock garden she and her husband built around the giant sycamore tree, and especially the stories her mother would tell. These manuscripts will be handed down to Pauline’s great-grandchildren.

Pauline is at rest with her husband and son in Sunset Memorial Gardens in Richland. She is survived by daughter Mary Germaine Marsh Clizbe a widow living in Oregon, four grandchildren James, Anna, Christopher, and Marcus; and eight great-grandchildren, in Washington, California, and Georgia. A memorial service for Pauline and her son Tony will be held at Christ the King Catholic Church in Richland on Sat., February 26, at 1 p.m. Memorial donations may be made to the Tri Cities Chaplaincy at 2108 W. Entiat, Kennewick, WA 99336-3000.