Marjorie Jean Erickson

Marjorie Jean Erickson
November 8, 1928 - March 30, 2023
Born in Afton, Iowa.  
Passed away in Mesa Arizona where she lived for about 30  years.

Marge loved reading, writing poetry, collecting horse momentos and bird houses in their beautiful southwestern style home in Arizona that she and George built themselves (with help from their family and friends).  She always fed and watched hundreds of birds who came to their lovely backyard sanctuary.  She also loved music and kept her favorite 500 songs on her iPod which she listened to 24/7 in her last days at the Summit.

Marge was an engaging story-teller.  She told us about having polio and being sent to a Sanatorium at a very young age.  She thought she was abandoned as her parents had no phone to talk to her.  She regularly walked to school at 5 years old through heavy snow with her brothers and once got lost in a white-out ending up cold and shivering at a neighbors’ farmhouse. Before meeting George, she was a traffic judge in Iowa.  After they married and moved to Thomson, Illinois on the Mississippi River they started their own asphalt business where she bid the jobs, did the books, and worked hands on energetically. They continued the business in the summers and were snowbirds in their Airstream trailer in Mesa Arizona for several years.  Then after retiring, they continually served and helped friends and family with projects.  Happy Hour at the Erickson’s was a weekly occurrence as their home was a favorite spot for many.  She loved dancing and went to the VFW or The Legion weekly.  Marge was always bubbly and full of life, interacting with everyone, never meeting a stranger.

Her parents, both deceased were Carl Raymond Griswold and Ruth Izetta Noble.
Husband, George Erickson Jr. is also deceased  and was born in Pleasant Springs Wisconsin.
Marge had two children from a previous marriage with Charles Ronald Landreth, deceased; son, Larry Dean Landreth, deceased; and son, Michael Charles Landreth from Creston, Iowa, now living in Colorado.  She had three step children, Brian Erickson, Sue Kind and Brenda Adams, 5 grandchildren, 11 great grandchildren, 9 Step grandchildren, and 5 step great-grandchildren.  There is one surviving sister, Charlotte Werth from Red Oak, Iowa, 4 deceased siblings, Marvin Griswold, Dale Griswold, John R. Griswold, and Donna Griswold. 

Marge will be memorialized next to George in the beautiful gardens at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona (which is for Veterans).  In November of 2023 her ashes will be interred next to George (as they requested).

The family would like to thank Hospice and The Summit Memory Center Staff for making her final days peaceful and comfortable.  In lieu of flowers, they request donations to Disabled Veterans. 

John 11:25 NAS  “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even if he dies,”

Psm 23:4 NAS  “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,  I fear no evil, for You are with me, Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me...And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

I would like all of you to know how Mom’s last days were.  We tried to surround her with peaceful memories.  Her private room was decorated with things she had picked out - paintings, picture of her family and George, horses, Native American art, etc.  Her music that she had set up had 500 of her favorite songs which we kept playing all the time.  I also set up a DVD with a continuous loop on the large flat screen TV showing beautiful nature scenes of flowers, birds, mountains, streams, waterfalls, etc.   The last 5 months, we mainly read scripture, books, and poems to her when we visited.  About 3 weeks before she died, the book “Hinds Feet On High Places” by Hannah Hurnard came to my mind - even though I had never read it.  It is an allegory of the struggles and difficulties of life on the journey to heaven.  Three days before she passed, I finished the story here: “Thus with suffering and sorrow supporting her, Much Afraid cast herself down into the yawning grave, … she leaned forward over the ashes on the altar and said with complete thanksgiving, ‘It is finished.’  Then utterly exhausted, she fell asleep. When at last MuchAfraid awoke, the sun was high in the sky, and she looked out through the mouth of the cave in which she found herself lying.  Everything was shimmering in a blaze of radiant sunshine which burnished every object with glory.  She lay still a little longer, collecting her thoughts and trying to understand where she was… and the Shepherd said to her, ‘This is your new name, from henceforth you are Grace and Glory.”
Then I stopped reading for the day. The next morning Mom was barely awake, her eyes closed, but at peace, so I read Psm. 23 several times and sat with her.
   Mom passed into the Light the next day.            Mike