Marilyn Lenth Goodrich was born September 12, 1945 in Denver, Colorado and died June 23, 2005 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is survived by her husband of 37 years, Donald W. Goodrich; her son, Christopher (and wife, Janice) and daughter, Diana (and partner, JB); her mother, Marjorie Holmes; her sister, Martha Wills (and partner, Walter) of San Antonio, TX; and brother, Russell Lenth (and wife, Jane) of Iowa City, IA; granddaughters Jamie, Sharon, Karen, and Kari; and many other relatives.
Marilyn graduated from Highland High School (Albuquerque) in 1963 and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Recreation in 1968 and an Associate in Electrical Engineering in 1985 at the University of New Mexico. After a year at Digital Equipment Company in Albuquerque, Marilyn enjoyed a distinguished career at Sandia National Laboratories until her death.
She loved the outdoors; she was a Girl Scout, camp counselor, Girl Scout and Cub Scout leader. Marilyn and Don built their cherished second home, a log cabin near Mineral Hill in San Miguel county, completed in 1977. She held the amateur radio call KB5DA and operated as net control for the Duke City Marathon for many years. She was a talented amateur cellist and played with the Symphony Orchestra of Albuquerque and several chamber music groups; she recently began playing the mandola and dulcimer with the Apple Mountain Dulcimer Club.
Donations in lieu of flowers should be directed to the National Kidney Foundation, the CSICOP Center for Inquiry, the All Faiths Receiving Home (Albuquerque), or the Fauna Foundation (Chambly, Quebec). Marilyn was the middle of us three children, and in a broader sense she was the center of our family. It was Marilyn that organized things, hosted holiday gatherings, and generally kept the family glued together.
Marilyn did it all. She lived her life with enthusisam, and made the very most of it, every day, in spite of the challenges of chronic illness. She was the first of us to complete a college education, and held good jobs at Harwood School and the UNM Medical Sciences Library in the period after she married Don in 1967. She was a stay-at-home mom while her son and daughter grew up. Then she got more education and launched a very successful second career. Meanwhile, she and Don built a cabin; she was an active volunteer, especially with ham-radio organizations; she revived her interest in music that had been latent since high school, and became very active in that realm. I admire Marilyn and Don for their solid marriage of almost 40 years (including a second wave of child-rearing for their granddaughter Jamie), while all the rest of us had separations and divorces.
One of my best connections with Marilyn in recent years has been through our mutual interests in music. She played cello in a number of orchestras and chamber groups, later expanded to folk and improvisational styles, and to more instruments (dulcimer and mandola). Marilyn and I participated together in a summer chamber music workshop in Montana (our old home state) in 2002. We had a wonderful time there, but she could not return there on subsequent summers due to the demands of dialysis. We played together for Chris and Janice's wedding in July, 2004. Marilyn traveled to a folk festival in Texas in the April 2005, and that same spring we participated together in a reunion of the Albuquerque Youth Symphony, two members of an incredible 175-piece orchestra. We had a great jam session after the reunion, where we did a pretty decent job improvising Autumn Leaves (among other tunes) on mandola, horn, and Band in a Box software. Memories of these experiences are real treasures.
Marilyn and I had many other kinds of good times together. And one distinct category of our interactions is that sometimes, something would just hit our funny bones, and we would find ourselves laughing uncontrollably. These would be in response to odd situations, or to one of Marilyn's famous verbal stumbles (e.g., "hindsight is fifty-fifty").
Goodbye, Marilyn. Your life made ours so much richer. We all miss you terribly.
I got to know Marilyn pretty well when we were in classes together at UNM. Before I left NM for a long time, I knew her as a young wife of Don and a great mother. I really enjoyed getting to know her as she had a great mischievious sense of humor. I am sad I did not get a chance to catch up with her before I saw this notice in 2005. Rest in peace, Marilyn
Neal Kloepfer
Marilyn Lenth Goodrich
1945-2005
Marilyn Lenth Goodrich was born September 12, 1945 in Denver, Colorado and died June 23, 2005 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is survived by her husband of 37 years, Donald W. Goodrich; her son, Christopher (and wife, Janice) and daughter, Diana (and partner, JB); her mother, Marjorie Holmes; her sister, Martha Wills (and partner, Walter) of San Antonio, TX; and brother, Russell Lenth (and wife, Jane) of Iowa City, IA; granddaughters Jamie, Sharon, Karen, and Kari; and many other relatives.
Marilyn graduated from Highland High School (Albuquerque) in 1963 and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Recreation in 1968 and an Associate in Electrical Engineering in 1985 at the University of New Mexico. After a year at Digital Equipment Company in Albuquerque, Marilyn enjoyed a distinguished career at Sandia National Laboratories until her death.
She loved the outdoors; she was a Girl Scout, camp counselor, Girl Scout and Cub Scout leader. Marilyn and Don built their cherished second home, a log cabin near Mineral Hill in San Miguel county, completed in 1977. She held the amateur radio call KB5DA and operated as net control for the Duke City Marathon for many years. She was a talented amateur cellist and played with the Symphony Orchestra of Albuquerque and several chamber music groups; she recently began playing the mandola and dulcimer with the Apple Mountain Dulcimer Club.
Donations in lieu of flowers should be directed to the National Kidney Foundation, the CSICOP Center for Inquiry, the All Faiths Receiving Home (Albuquerque), or the Fauna Foundation (Chambly, Quebec).
Marilyn was the middle of us three children, and in a broader sense she was the center of our family. It was Marilyn that organized things, hosted holiday gatherings, and generally kept the family glued together.
Marilyn did it all. She lived her life with enthusisam, and made the very most of it, every day, in spite of the challenges of chronic illness. She was the first of us to complete a college education, and held good jobs at Harwood School and the UNM Medical Sciences Library in the period after she married Don in 1967. She was a stay-at-home mom while her son and daughter grew up. Then she got more education and launched a very successful second career. Meanwhile, she and Don built a cabin; she was an active volunteer, especially with ham-radio organizations; she revived her interest in music that had been latent since high school, and became very active in that realm. I admire Marilyn and Don for their solid marriage of almost 40 years (including a second wave of child-rearing for their granddaughter Jamie), while all the rest of us had separations and divorces.
One of my best connections with Marilyn in recent years has been through our mutual interests in music. She played cello in a number of orchestras and chamber groups, later expanded to folk and improvisational styles, and to more instruments (dulcimer and mandola). Marilyn and I participated together in a summer chamber music workshop in Montana (our old home state) in 2002. We had a wonderful time there, but she could not return there on subsequent summers due to the demands of dialysis. We played together for Chris and Janice's wedding in July, 2004. Marilyn traveled to a folk festival in Texas in the April 2005, and that same spring we participated together in a reunion of the Albuquerque Youth Symphony, two members of an incredible 175-piece orchestra. We had a great jam session after the reunion, where we did a pretty decent job improvising Autumn Leaves (among other tunes) on mandola, horn, and Band in a Box software. Memories of these experiences are real treasures.
Marilyn and I had many other kinds of good times together. And one distinct category of our interactions is that sometimes, something would just hit our funny bones, and we would find ourselves laughing uncontrollably. These would be in response to odd situations, or to one of Marilyn's famous verbal stumbles (e.g., "hindsight is fifty-fifty").
Goodbye, Marilyn. Your life made ours so much richer. We all miss you terribly.
Russ Lenth - July 4, 2005
Betty Myers (Schaefer)
I got to know Marilyn pretty well when we were in classes together at UNM. Before I left NM for a long time, I knew her as a young wife of Don and a great mother. I really enjoyed getting to know her as she had a great mischievious sense of humor. I am sad I did not get a chance to catch up with her before I saw this notice in 2005. Rest in peace, Marilyn