Marion Wallace Farries Bretz

1913-2011
Bowling Green, KY — Family and friends will celebrate private services for Marion Wallace Farries Bretz, 98, who died Sept. 11, 2011, in Bowling Green, KY.
She was born March 29, 1913, in Jersey City, N.J., the daughter of Anna Lewis and J.L. “Laurie” Farries, and grew up in Asbury Park. A brother and sister died in infancy.
Marion sang in local churches and played theater organ for the silent pictures until graduating from Asbury Park High School.
During the 1930s, she worked as an advertising and fashion artist in New York, New Jersey and West Palm Beach, Fla. She wrote and illustrated a New Jersey newspaper column on fashion under the pen name “Stephanie Whyte.” She also illustrated for Book House for Children, Random House and Butterick Patterns.
In 1933 she earned her diploma in art from Cooper Union in New York City, where she received the silver medal in pictorial design. Her teachers included Kansas muralist John Steuart Curry. She also pursued vocal studies with Blanche Blackman.
Marion was married to pianist and organist Marshall Bretz in 1940. He died in 1983.
In 1944 they settled in Ruston, La., where Marion taught piano and voice, and sang at weddings and funerals and for the chancel choir for Trinity United Methodist Church. Marion completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music at Louisiana Tech University.
Before retiring at age 85, Marion had worked for nearly two decades for Ruston Travel Service, where she led tours for seniors to Europe, Asia, and North America.
In 2000 she moved to New York to live with her daughter Anne and son-in-law Richard Aronoff. After 9/11, she moved to Kerhonkson, N.Y. Her activities included singing in the Roundout Valley United Methodist Church choir and sketching the Shawangunk mountain valley from her back porch.
In 2007 Marion moved to Bowling Green, to live with her son Bob and his wife, Jackie. She attended Eastwood Baptist Church.
Marion impressed all with her zest for life and her Scottish wry sense of humor.
Marion is survived by two sons, Bob, and wife Jackie, Bowling Green, and Lewis and wife Pam, Tasmania, Australia; two daughters, Lynn, Lawrence, and Anne Bretz-Aronoff and husband Richard, New York City and Kerhonkson; eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.