Marilyn Putnam passed away on March 29, 2023 of natural causes at age 95.
She is survived by her daughter, Jessica Putnam Hughes of Williamsburg, a son and daughter in Maryland, 6 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren. Marilyn and her husband, Israel Putnam, raised their children to be involved citizens, with ethics and honesty.
She spent the last 20 years of her life volunteering as an airport Ambassador and library book shelver. She started her airport ambassador career in Phoenix, AZ and then continued with the Daytona Beach Airport, she retired in December 2019 at the age of 91. She always said the best part of being an Airport Ambassador was the free parking whenever you wanted to fly out to go somewhere.
During her working career she was a reservation agent with the Arizona Diamondbacks stadium and Quality Inns International. She was also a transcription typist with Geico Insurance and a secretary with the Department of Agriculture. Her formal training was through a Business/Secretarial program which she completed after high school.
Marilyn became a young widow and spent almost half of her adult life as a single woman after her husband passed. During that time she travelled, worked, babysat/spoiled grandchildren and learned to appreciate eating out alone and reading good books. She had two close guy friends over the years and her special friend, Dave Harris, for the past 10 years of her life has been the love of her life.
She was always lucky when it came to Lotto Tickets, sweepstakes drawings, slot machines and contests of chance. Many times she would travel to a casino and return with twice the money she left with. As a Brownie Troop co-leader she entered a baseball home run contest where she was assigned to Frank Howard. To win she would have to have her assigned player get a home run in the game she was assigned AND in the inning that she was assigned. When Frank Howard hit his home run in her inning she could be heard running through the house yelling “Frank Howard hit a HOME RUN” over and over. When I said to her that he ‘Always’ hits a home run she replied, “Yes, but this time I won 100 tickets to a baseball game!”. So 100 Senators T-Shirts arrived at our house prior to the assigned game where we had 100 tickets. Marilyn had to go all over Fairland and Burtonsville, MD looking for youth groups to give shirt to and get their organizations to bring them all to the baseball game on the same day to use the 100 tickets.
When a family vacation required camping to conserve finances she would always seem to find a campground that was near a piece of the Appalachian Trail or other hike so that she could take a good walk. She instilled that love of walking to her children. She planned family vacations, birthday parties, Christmas, and Halloween costumes. No one in the family ever remembers her cooking an entire turkey on Thanksgiving but she always knew where Thanksgiving was being served and she knew how to make a reservation.
Marilyn was always a baseball fan and travelled to games in person as often as was possible. While in Phoenix AZ she became a ticket sales agent for the Diamondbacks and was there when they won the World Series – she became a lifelong fan of the team.
Marilyn was born in Brooklyn, New York, moved to Arlington VA as a young girl, married and lived in Fairland, MD, moved to Phoenix, AZ, and lastly lived in Daytona Beach, FL. In all of these places she encountered mice, snakes, groundhogs, scorpions and lizards. None of these wild inhabitants won in the battles she had with them.
In lieu of flowers please consider a donation to the charity of your choice.
