Memorial services for Mable Esther Marzinske, 86, of Albert Lea will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 6, at Bayview/Freeborn Funeral Home. The Rev. Kent Otterman will officiate. Visitation will be one hour prior to the service.
Mable died Sunday, Aug. 24, 2008, at Good Samaritan Center.
Mable Esther Marzinske was born on July 13, 1922, to Benjamin and Henrietta (Hattie) Frank in Janesville. Mable was a card-carrying member of “The Greatest Generation” whose character and being was forged in the Great Depression and honed during the trials and tribulations of being a war bride in the depths of WWII. She was married to Victor A. Marzinske while he was on leave from the Navy on Oct. 27, 1944. She criss-crossed the country, living on the East Coast and then the West Coast as Victor’s homeports moved as the tides of the war shifted from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific. Upon his return they bought and homesteaded a lake-acreage in North Central near Hackensack. In true pioneer fashion, together they cleared the land by hand and built their home and buildings from lumber that was milled off the property. Mable was as skilled with a double-bladed axe as she was with a mixing bowl, spatula and wood-burning stove. It was at this time, they started their family. They then lived a short time in Minneapolis as Victor attended Dunwoody Institute to pursue his dream to become a master electrician. They then moved to Nebraska, Minnesota and resided in Calumet and helped build the fledgling taconite industry as it blossomed in the post-war era. Mable and Victor then moved south with their three children and settled in Albert Lea. Victor became an electrician with Wilson’s Foods from the late 50s to the early 80s. Mable was an active member of the Zion Lutheran Church and an active parent of her children’s education. Upon their graduations from college and Victor’s retirement, Mable and Victor returned to the land they loved on Child Lake and built a new home and resided there for over twenty years until Victor’s death in 1999. Mable then remained at her beloved lake home until 2007 with her final residency at Good Samaritan Center in Albert Lea.
Mable will truly be remembered for her crystal sharp mind and her enormous heart that gathered in strangers and turned them into family after only a brief conversation. She carried on a love-hate relationship with the Minnesota Twins and Vikings from their inception. She was a woman of strong convictions and a champion for those less fortunate, thinking seldom of herself. She will not only be missed by her family, but, by all who spent even the briefest moments with her. She will undoubtedly help St. Peter with roll call for she never forgot a name or face in her 86 years.
Survivors include her children, Linda Marzinske of Brooklyn Park, Marsha and Leo Yost of Albert Lea, and Bruce and Susan Marzinske of Mason City, Iowa; grandchildren, Susan and Peter Schmidt, and Scott Yost of Duluth; great-grandchildren, Megan and Brooke Schmidt.
Mable was preceded in death by her parents; husband, Victor; and brother, Lyle Frank.
Memorials are preferred to the family.