Marion E. Bender's Obituary
Marion Ellen (Johnson) Bender was born January 26, 1927 at Seattle, Washington to Frank Walter Johnson and Ellen Olivia (Hellgren) Johnson. She passed away October 14, 2025 at Theda Care Medical Center in New London, Wisconsin. She was 98.
Called “Mary” at home, she was the sixth of seven children and was only three when her mother died. She and her younger brother lived with their father’s sisters, Hilda and Freda, for three years until their father remarried and brought the family together again. The Johnsons always lived near Green Lake in Seattle. Mary attended the Swedish Covenant Church in downtown Seattle and occasionally pumped gas at her father’s service station in Pioneer Square, the “Depot Garage.”
She earned the nickname “Jonnie” at school, reportedly to distinguish her from other Marion/Mary Johnsons, and the name stuck. She graduated from Ballard High School and earned a scholarship to Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. She took a chemistry class for which a young man from Wisconsin was the lab instructor. She wrote in her diary, “I was introduced to Gordon Lawrence Bender today. What a man!”
Jonnie and Gordon married on June 24, 1945, at Green Lake Lutheran Church and lived a full summer at Lake Chelan in Washington before embarking on the academic life. In the early years, they moved from state to state as Gordon built his teaching career, and they grew their family. Barbara and Caryl were born in Normal, Illinois, Judy in Bemidji, Minnesota, and Patti when they moved to Tempe, Arizona where they remained for thirty years. Gordon taught at Arizona State University, and Jonnie was active in numerous pursuits.
As the mother of four girls, Jonnie managed the household, sewed the girls’ clothes, and curled their hair. She painted Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on their muslin curtains, made wonderful popcorn balls at Halloween, and painted holiday scenes on the front windows of their house at Christmastime. On Thanksgiving and Christmas mornings, she got up early to stuff the turkey and get it into the oven, and on birthdays, she made special cakes.
As her daughters grew, Jonnie drove them to ballet and piano lessons and to the swimming pool every single day of the hot, Arizona summer. When Barbie dolls appeared, she sewed their many, tiny fashions by hand, stitch by stitch. She led their Girl Scout and Camp Fire Girl troops, sewed their Rainbow Girl and prom dresses, and when the time came, their wedding and bridesmaid dresses, too.
Besides sewing, Jonnie crocheted afghans for family, neighbors, and anyone who needed cheering. She knitted multiple sweaters for everyone in the family. She made quilts, sewed curtains, hooked rugs, embellished tablecloths with hardanger embroidery, crocheted exquisite lace doilies, and cross-stitched pictures and pillows.
Jonnie had the curiosity and gumption to take up new skills, and she had the talent and patience to become very good at each activity she tried. She took photos, developed the film, and enlarged the photos in a darkroom. She hand-tinted portraits, made stained glass, created mosaics, and made plaster of Paris nativity sets. She could pitch a tent, light a fire, fish, row a boat, and play a fair game of tennis. When something broke, she could almost always figure out how to fix it.
St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church held its first Sunday school classes in the Bender living room, and for the next thirty years, Jonnie remained active in church work. She served as church secretary and on the altar guild, led vacation Bible school, and helped with the Christmas pageant.
The family spent a year in Bethesda, Maryland, after which Jonnie began work for the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona. She began in the children’s division of the Department of Christian Education and then developed and ran a statewide audio-visual library, which gave her an office at Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix. She wrote: “I started writing poetry, read profusely in theology until one day Bishop Harte asked me to edit the Arizona Church Record. That began the most rewarding three years I ever experienced in church work. I knew nothing of editing a newspaper, but I learned and did a remarkably good job of it. The last three issues I set on the Selectric Composer (IBM) and it was error-free!”
As Assistant to the Dean, Jonnie ran the summer “Family Camp” and aided elderly residents in the cathedral’s apartments. She helped people who came in need to the church’s door, choreographed weddings and funerals, decorated for the church seasons, and even cleaned and polished the floors—“keeping things running smoothly for the years I was there.” An amazing project she completed was a stole for the rector with petit point reproductions of all thirteen of the cathedral’s stained-glass windows.
Jonnie and Gordon retired in 1981 and lived the snowbird lifestyle between Arizona and Wisconsin for many years before moving permanently to their home on Columbia Lake in Waupaca. There, Jonnie framed and sheet-rocked walls, painted, and wallpapered. She and Gordon paneled the living room with meticulously cut, knotty pine boards and built a model train in the basement for which Jonnie created the scenery.
When each grandchild was born, she came to help, handling household chores to let the young parents focus on their new baby. In the middle of the night, she brought juice for the nursing mother and rocked in a nearby chair to keep her company. As the children grew, she treated them to waffles and bacon for breakfast and gave them oatmeal to take down to the dock and feed to the fish. She taught her grandchildren to row a boat, paddle a canoe, knit, crochet, latch-hook, and cross-stitch, and she took them to the Red Mill to buy items for their collections.
Jonnie took time to get to know her grandchildren’s interests and responded, from making a Ghostbusters firehouse to a quilted, orca wall-hanging. Every child received a personalized, needlepointed Christmas stocking, and she made them blankets, afghans, and sweaters, with particular attention to that child’s interests and favorite colors. She built and electrified a three-story dollhouse that her granddaughters helped her to furnish, and made doll clothes galore—dresses, coats, capes, nightgowns, play clothes, Halloween sweaters, and every American Girl outfit. As if that weren’t enough, she made stuffed animals, cloth dolls, and then porcelain dolls, from greenware to finished outfits.
Once bitten by the genealogy bug, Jonnie researched her Swedish roots back to the 1600s. Not content to discover direct-line ancestors, she followed their families and side branches and read local histories—in Swedish—to learn about their neighbors, too. She and Patti visited Sweden twice, after which Jonnie maintained correspondence with over fifty of her Swedish cousins—and crocheted afghans for them, too, of course.
Jonnie provided much of Gordon’s care in his latter years, so that he could remain at home. After his passing in 2011, she spent more time in Kansas each winter, but she looked forward every summer to her family’s visits to the lake.
Our mother was innately positive and cheerful. Faced with challenge, as she was many times in her life, she just kept going, with quiet, formidable will. She loved unconditionally, laughed until her belly shook, and gave generously of her time, talents, and affection.
Jonnie was preceded in death by her husband, Gordon L. Bender, her six siblings (Herbert, Doris, Inez, Margaret, Donald, and Willard), her daughter Judy Bender-Ream, and her granddaughter Tiffany Bender-Hitesman. Holding her close in memory are her daughters, Barbara (Reeder) Herrick, Caryl Bender, and Patti Bender (Pat Fleming); her grandchildren Bonnie (Mark) Pratt, Cindy (Chris) English, Nancy (Nathan) Daoust, Jessica Bender-Nettleton, Emily (Paul) Murphy-Thompson, Kyle (Adria Surovy) Bender, Nicole Bender-Ream, Katie (Jordan) Bahr-Bender, Scott Konzem (Rachel Voorhies), and Sally (Andy) Burns; plus great-grandchildren, a host of extended family, and close, long-time friends.
Funeral Services will be held on Saturday, October 18, 2025 at 12:00 PM at Crystal Lake United Methodist Church, N697 County Road K in Dayton Township, Waupaca. A visitation will precede the service on Saturday from 11:00-11:45 AM at the Church. The Holly Funeral Home of Waupaca, Wisconsin is assisting the family with local arrangements.
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