RIPTON — Marlene (Mar) Harrison, of Ripton, Vt., died on April 9, 2021.
She attended the University of Michigan and graduated from Michigan State University as an English major. Following graduation, she drove east and “never looked back.” From the first time she saw the ocean until she moved to Cambridge to study at Radcliffe College, she described that time as “falling in love with Cambridge and learning.” Later, she met and later married a medical student, Howard Harrison, and after they moved to New England, their family of four children were born and raised in Carlisle, Mass. In the 1980s, Mar attended Boston College Graduate School of Social Work and worked in that field for many years.
An outdoor-loving person, Mar hiked and skied all over New England with friends and family, and she moved to Vermont in the mid-1980s. Around 1989 Mar became involved making pottery at Frog Hollow in Middlebury and continued until the present at Middlebury Studio School, the successor of Frog Hollow. There she found a wonderful group of like-minded friends who supported one another and celebrated life in many ways on all occasions.
Mar was a past member of the State Board of the Green Mountain Club; a past member of Nashoba Brooks School Board in Concord, Mass.; a former hospice volunteer for Addison County Volunteer Hospice; former member of the board of the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op; and the Ripton Planning Board.
Mar is survived by four children and their spouses: Anne Dunk and her husband Kevin; Rebecca Parker and her husband David; Peter Harrison and his wife Amy; and Kristin Harrison and her husband Warren O’Brien. She also leaves ten beloved grandchildren: Patrick, Jack, and Molly Dunk; Sophie, Meghan, Phoebe, and Isabel Parker; and Ellie, Hannah, and Lucy Harrison. Mar’s brother, Bill, died in 2005.◊