Marlene Alice Garrigues (July 6, 1934 – May 6, 2024) passed away peacefully in Ocala, Florida at the age of 89 with her family by her side, only five days after her beloved husband. As a dedicated Christian at the United Methodist Church, she is now with her savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Born in 1934 to Fred Nuyen and Isla Jones as the youngest of five children in Aurora, Illinois, she graduated from West Aurora High School in 1952. Marlene’s career started as a business trip organizer for Burlington Northern Railroad, and she spent a year as a model for Spiegel’s, at one point being Miss Fox Valley. Finding the modeling business unappealing, she joined IBM where she spent the next 17 years where her lightning-fast typing, shorthand note taking and no-nonsense professionalism propelled her to executive secretary. It was there she met her husband and love of her life, Richard “Dick” Garrigues (March 12, 1934 – May 1, 2024). They were happily married for 52 years and lived a life of travel, adventure, family, and friends.
Marlene was a beautiful, generous, and industrious person whose smile could light up a room. In addition to her professional career, she excelled at the fine arts of sewing, quilting, and beading. She was a renowned seamstress, making both her daughter-in-law’s and daughter’s wedding dresses. Marlene made hundreds of art quilts, many of which were included in juried art-quilt shows along with intricate beaded bracelets and earrings.
She had a competitive spirit, she loved playing games such as poker, bingo, and especially 10,000 with her grandchildren. She also loved fishing and was envied by her sons for her fishing prowess: a 350-pound marlin in the Caribbean, walleyes and northerns in Red Lake, Canada, and bass at her cabin in Mercer, Wisconsin. Marlene and Dick enjoyed a long retirement, traveling extensively to South and Central America, Canada, the Caribbean, and several European countries including Scotland.
She invested in and supported the family’s entrepreneurial business ventures including the Canton Poultry Farms of Georgia, which became the largest independent poultry farm in the state at the time. They also invested in a poultry research farm in Alabama and an experimental shrimp farm in Ecuador.
Marlene was a matriarch of all matriarchs. Her and Dick’s love for their family, communities, and each other were unmatched but carry on in their surviving children Bradley (Debra) Richards, Gregory (Amy Spies) Richards, Richard (Kathy) Pishotta, Linda (Ian) Innes, Gina (Andy) Brawand, and David (Jessica Kelly) Garrigues along with 17 grandchildren, 15 great grandchildren and 1 great-great grandchild. She is predeceased by her parents Fred and Isla Nuyen, her brothers Jack, Judson and Fred Nuyen, her sister Marge Schoofs, their son, Judson Richards, and grandsons Johan Richards and Gregory Shropshire.