Disneyland had no place in the family vacations of Marilyn and Clifford Cressy.
“We went to Revolutionary War and Civil War sites,” said their daughter, Collette Cressy of Denver, saying her mother was intent on her children learning while they traveled.
“She’d screech on the brakes for any historical marker, even if it was about the Girl Scouts” being at a certain place decades earlier, said Cressy.
Marilyn Cressy died at Porter Hospital on Wednesday after battling ill health for several months. She was 81.
A viewing is planned from 4 to 6 p.m. today at Horan & McConaty Funeral Home, 1091 S. Colorado Blvd. The funeral will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at the same location.
Marilyn Cressy, a teacher and manager of her husband’s businesses, seemingly had time for everything, including taking care of her disabled sister, Janet Boone, for 24 years.
Despite the groans of her children, Marilyn Cressy never stopped the learning vacations, said her daughter.
Collette Cressy and her brother, Ken, found some of the flat states hugely boring, but their mother, whom she dubbed “the travel agent,” found them beautiful, said Collette Cressy. “It became a family joke; we had a lot of laughs over the years.”
And she has followed in her mother’s footsteps, often taking her own two children on learning vacations.
Marilyn Cressy “was enchanted with history,” said Ken Cressy, who has homes here and in Michigan. He said she taught them about a historic place in advance of visiting. “We were all enriched by her,” he said.
A descendant of Daniel Boone, Marilyn Boone was born in Hammond, Ind., on Aug. 23, 1929. She earned a history and education degree at Indiana University and taught in Aurora elementary schools and at Denver’s East High.
She married Clifford Cressy on Aug. 12, 1959.
For 40 years, she was the business manager for his insurance agency and Time Saver Tool Corp., a business that sold tools Clifford had invented. His primary inventions were attachments for vice grips.
Marilyn Cressy was active in the Democratic Party and helped start a Planned Parenthood clinic in Hammond, Ind.
Marilyn and Clifford Cressy took care of her sister Janet, who was mentally disabled, for 24 years. She died in 2003.
In addition to her daughter and son, Marilyn Cressy is survived by five grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and her brother, Roger Boone, of Floyds Knobs, Ind.
