Saturday, January 18, 2025
Marian Donnell Vandergriff passed peacefully Dec. 18, 2024.
A funeral service will be at 11 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 26 at Ash Creek Baptist Church under the direction of White’s Funeral Home followed by burial in Ash Creek Cemetery. The family will receive visitors at 10 a.m. Dr. Wesley Shotwell will officiate the services.
Marian was born to Kate Spann and William “Bill” Eli Donnell in Matador Dec. 27, 1929. After spending her early years in West Texas, including happy days on her Grandmother Donnell’s farm in Throckmorton and a time in Bryson where her parents built, owned and operated the Marian Hotel, her family moved east. Moving first to Springtown, then to Azle, she was a 1948 graduate of Azle High School.
She married Ernest Cherry, the father of her children, in 1951. Family was the center of Marian’s life. She doted on her children, siblings, mother, nieces and nephews, but her dearest title was Grandmother to her five grandchildren. She had a special way of lavishing love and meeting every grandchild where they were. They called her Grand, and each will assure you they were her favorite.
She had a 50-year career as a bookkeeper and office manager, whether working downtown for Dean Bros Oil Company, on Main Street at her own bookkeeping and answering service, or with and for her sister and brother-in-law, Jane and Gene Stevenson. Marian was an artist at heart; happiest when creating and sharing the fruits of her labor. She designed and sewed clothing for herself and her family, once personally complimented by Jackie Kennedy on the flightline at Carswell Air Force Base for the suit Marian had designed, sewn and worn for the occasion. She taught her granddaughters to sew simple dresses for an African outreach ministry. Most recently, she designed and sewed masks during the COVID isolation period.
An oil painter, she favored subjects like her own father and uncles who cowboyed on the open range, and wildlife, especially birds. She recently illustrated a book written by a dear friend. Marian was a baker and candy maker, renowned for her Waldorf Red Cake and dipped chocolate candies and saw her cake ministry as a way to reach those in need of comfort. However, accepting Christ as her Lord and Savior as an adult marked the seminal moment in her life, and her quiet, diligent prayer life sustained and supported so many in need.
Marian is preceded in death by her parents; former husbands, Ernest Cherry and Johnnie Vandergriff; sisters, Katherine Webb Kramer, Geraldine Raper, Pauline Owens, Naomi Hearell Stewart; brother, Charles Donnell, and several nieces and nephews.
Survivors include daughters, Janet Byars and husband, Mark, and Elizabeth Wagstaff and husband, Robert; grandchildren, Cole Byars and wife, Brittany, Kate Verhulst and husband, Otto, Dr. Rachel Warner and husband, Alex, Caroline Wagstaff and John Miles Wagstaff; great-grandchildren, Margretta and August Verhulst and Jack Warner; sister, Jane Stevenson and husband, Gene; brother, Tom Donnell and wife, Regina; niece, Lauren Stevenson and many more nieces and nephews; her caregivers and friends.
