William "Bill" Robert Marsh

In Memory of my husband, Bill Marsh Born on the eve of April Fool’s Day (March 31, 1942), Bill Marsh may have seemed born to lead a life of good humor, adventure, and constant fun. He was preceded in death by his father, Robert Elwood Marsh and Bill is survived by sons, John Marsh and husband Madison Stutts, and daughter Teresa Marsh. his mother, Betty Marsh and brother Ronald Wayne Marsh and family. Bill also loved live-in family members Dena Martin and Jackson P. Martin, Jr., both of whom lived with us for years. Though definitely Chicagoan, Bill graduated in 1960 from Paschal High, Fort Worth, Texas, and from Electrical Engineering School at the University of Illinois in Urbana, 1965. As classmates attended graduation ceremonies, Bill was already engaged in his career as engineer at Pacific Power and Light in Portland, Oregon. In 1968 he was promoted to Engineer at Casper, Wyoming. He convinced me to become Mrs. William Marsh on December 4, 1971, at First Presbyterian Church, where he was serving as their youngest elder at age 29. In order to make a joke, Bill delighted in catching the unsuspecting in every funny yarn. No matter how careful one was, Bill could always hoodwink others into laughing, and his bride was no exception; his torment was bait-hook-line-and-sinker. He was cheerfully father, friend and adoptee of son John and daughter Teresa, both of whom he thoroughly cherished, as do I. At the same time, he was working on his second term as church elder, and for of those months, reviewing old engineering books to become a Professional Engineer in the State of Wyoming and accomplishing such with a high testing score. As a Professional Engineer, one of the first things his Professional Society brethren did was to organize competitive exams for the nation’s young mathematicians at the behest of a US Presidential request (circa 1973) to encourage excellence in student math in the USA. Bill received that organization’s coveted award for 25 years of service, a lovely crescent-shaped crystal plaque commemorating his achievement for working for the mathematical excellence of our nation’s 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. One year at Washington, D.C., Bill graded a young man’s test from the State of Kentucky, which earned the young man First Place in Mathcounts® national contest, when Bill discovered he had the correct answer to a question that wrong on the master answer sheet. When Bill graded his paper, he proved mathematically that the Kentucky boy’s answer was right, and the master answer sheet’s answer, incorrect. You might say Bill wasn’t just a clown to brighten everyone’s day, he surely had a knack for doing all things right including assuring the answer given correctly was acknowledged, and it was received with great appreciation by the engineering attendees who agreed with Bill’s proof by working the problem themselves. Bill served Pacific Power and Light as head Engineer of its Albany, Oregon, engineering office from 1978 to 1982; Medford, Oregon 1982-1983, when he was suddenly promoted to Chief Engineer in the Easternmost territory of Pacific Power and Light, of Casper, all of Wyoming, and several cities in Montana and Idaho. He was so busy that he was sorely missed on many travel days to other counties, doing the mundane tasks of managing electrical delivery in his area. In the next 25 years, his men had no lost-time accidents because he made sure lineman attended Monday safety meetings that included known panaceas from electrocution.. In Wyoming, the unusually harsh winter conditions found my husband out in 40-below zero blizzards, making sure his linemen had warm coats and a hot cup of coffee nestled in their gloves to prevent frostbite in icy weather with 60 MPH winds. What can be one’s prayer but God bless those who bring power to other people in harsh conditions. Bill’s team also set a record that has not been broken for having the shortest outages in the history of his company. We seldom saw outages of more than a minute or two on his watch, because of his men’s appreciation for the good way and the best way to avoid every imaginable type of problem through safety and thorough training. Bill retired the same year he began showing small confusion issues by missing turns when driving. Even so, he learned the sewing machine repair business to aid our small business on Casper’s 2ne street downtown area, where he faithfully served following retirement, doing repairs for other people at low prices that challenged business rivals but enabled women making quilts and clothing for their families using Pfaff sewing machines. We left Wyoming in 2009 and moved back home to Texas, to help me deal with fibromyalgia that was exacerbated in pain when the thermometer drops in the Rocky Mountain winters. By that time, his own symptoms grew, but he loved to walk our dog, Miss Music, around our small property in good weather. He couldn’t put together jokes any more, but Bill Marsh not once complained about his illness, and let me know he still loved living life as fully as he could up until he couldn’t get up out of his chair the last two days of his dear life. If he could talk now, he would make sure everybody had something to laugh about, enjoy the jokes, and have the gladdest memories imaginable. He devoted most of his life making sure everybody else had a happy life, and he will be sorely missed every remaining day of my life. He was proud of his son John’s academic achievements, including High School Salutatorian and 3 college degrees in various engineering disciplines, not to mention a career in the Research Triangle computer industry; and just as proud was he of his dear daughter Teresa, who went into law enforcement and has served many years as a North Las Vegas, Nevada peacekeeper and a candidate for retirement this year. She also distinguished herself in a special music service to others by mastering the bagpipes to honor fallen police officers with deeply comforting music. Bill was very brave at all times when each child moved close to opposite coasts of this great United States from the other. Huntsville, his last home is within a few miles of being half way between John and Teresa’s respective homes. He has missed his fellow Wyoming Society of Professional Engineers members, friends he made in business and his fellow Presbyterian Church Elders during his nine 3-year terms or more over his 74 years on earth. Sometimes he would serve the last years of someone else’s term plus the two terms the Presbyterian Book of Order may have deemed wisest. His gift was being one of the dearest Clerks of Session ever, since most of his recitations of minutes included excerpts of his imaginative sense of humor. Oh, yes, and because of his healing and friendship-building pranks and jokes, often quite off the wall, his crews of line guys and engineers in several states dubbed him “Wild Bill”. I gratefully thank God for those here who blessed Bill with thoughtful kindnesses in spite of his disease that eventually took him. Thanks, Rev. Dr. Tim Oleksy, for visitations to Bill when requested by family. Submitted in deepest love and admiration to honor the best man I ever met, William Robert Marsh, 8/31/1942 – 6/13/2016. Rest well, my most charming and irreplaceable best friend, Bill. There will never be another you. Thanks for the memories. … becki marsh

William "Bill" Robert Marsh

March 31, 1942 - June 13, 2016