Early in the morning on Thursday, July 19, 2018, our sweet mom, grandma, and dear friend, Marcia Jeannine Macklin Stoddard, died. She was 79. Marcia was born April 5, 1939, in Sacramento, California, to Loran (Mack) and Vineta Macklin. She has one brother, Loran. Officially she has 4 children: Shawna, Mack, Chell and Daniel; and 15 grandchildren and lots of unofficial ones of both.
Mom is back together now with her husband, Joe, who passed just 8 months ago. They married in Los Angeles on Sept. 15, 1959. They had planned to marry on Sept. 14, but the temple was closed, so Mom spent what was supposed to be her wedding night sharing a room with her soon-to-be sister-in-law, Barbara. It has been sweet to see Mom and Dad grow closer in recent years, with him taking care of her, and Mom growing in appreciation of his loving care. Mom said she misses him and things like their drives up the canyon and sharing a whopper from Burger King.
Looking back on Mom’s life, it’s clear she touched many people with her great love. Mom and Dad never drew much of a line between family and friends. Every Christmas included someone extra with us. Many times they opened their home for a few weeks or months or years to someone in need, and those people became forever another Stoddard. Chrystal, Gilda and Karin are a few who came to stay for a while at our house and are now another one of Marcia and Joes’s kids.
Mom loved to cook and sew, and these were ways she expressed her love. If you liked your beef stroganoff without sour cream, she would do it that way. She would cook any meal and dessert you wanted on your birthday. One year, celebrating two birthdays on one day, she made fancy Chinese rice, French crepes, lemon merengue pie and pineapple upside down cake. She made beautiful dresses and ornate Halloween costumes. Some of the notables were Batman (the blue 60s version), a devil with a tail that pinned on your butt, a bear/big-foot/wookie and an extremely detailed ET the Extra Terrestrial costume.
Mom and Dad collected friends from every place they lived. In Scottsdale, Richardson, Houston, San Jose and Tooele, they found friends that they grew to love and stayed close to in all the years afterward.
Mom, Marcia, leaves behind loved ones too many to count, and now joins just as many who have left this life before her. We know she is now well and safe and surrounded by love, but we will miss her here with us.
Services will be on Monday, July 30, 2018, at 11 a.m. at the LDS Chapel in Pine Canyon, Utah, 2032 Churchwood Drive with a prior visitation from 9:30 – 10:45 a.m. Interment will be in the Pleasant Green Cemetery in Magna, Utah.