"You are My Sunshine . . . "

Dorothy Marguerite Lanham

1921--2010

Marguerite Lanham has died, slipping peacefully from her family and this world August 3, 2010. She was 89.

Marguerite (her dad called her Scout, her sisters called her Mugs, but she was never known as Dorothy until she qualified for Medicare), spent her early childhood in Fruitland, Emmett and Horseshoe Bend. In 1929 her father William Taylor Deeds left his sawmill manager’s job to become a wildcat logger, abandoning city life for remote logging camps at the edge of Idaho wilderness. Her mother Golden Violet Young, pampered daughter of an affluent Fruitland dairy farmer, accompanied him along with Marguerite and her three (later four) siblings and their cow Old Blue. It was a hard life at best, made brutal at times by the Great Depression.

At fourteen, Marguerite left home to attend high school in Cascade, graduating in 1939. At seventeen she married Max Lanham, spent a honeymoon summer on a fire service lookout tower, then moved to the Lanham’s farm at Cascade. To provide his new wife with transportation, Max traded his tenor saxophone for a horse, Smokey. Marguerite rode Smokey everywhere. They moved into a log cabin in town for the birth of son Judd in 1941. Marguerite stayed with family in Council when Max enlisted during World War II.

At war’s end and following the birth of a daughter they moved to Boise. There they operated the Sky Room restaurant at Gowen Field, learned to fly (Marguerite solo'd in 1947) built houses for post-war families and settled into the community. Marguerite worked in the home (built by Max), raising their two children while Max built electrical power lines across the West.

Marguerite’s considerable creative skills led her to become an accomplished artist and published writer, but mostly she channeled her ingenuity to benefit the family. Self-taught in most things, Marguerite built and reupholstered family furniture, tanned elk hide for gloves and slippers, made and mended clothing, replaced shakes on the house and shingles on the roof, changed car oil, kept the books, led a scout troop, tended her garden, fruit trees and berry patch, preserved the bounty and watched over her children. Somewhat shy, always reserved, she was invited to join the American Association of University Women’s writing group after winning first place in the Grace Jordan short story contest. She blossomed in the company of these bright and articulate literary women.

After her husband’s death in 1978 she spent winters with family in sunny Arizona. In 1984 she moved to Cave Creek, AZ to become a second mother to granddaughter Mame. In the twenty years following, Marguerite became an ardent desert preservationist, chairing the Desert Awareness Committee and stewarding conservation sites for the Desert Foothills Land Trust. Marguerite and Mame shared a love of horses, riding Rugby and Rainbow in the magnificent Sonoran desert. Judd built his mother her “Casa Margarita” studio where she continued her artwork with quiet pleasure and creative abandon; her rock art paintings were sold in a Scottsdale gallery for many years. She hiked the desert, learning to identify edible and medicinal desert plants, mined clay from local washes and fired hand-formed pots in primitive kilns, then taught her techniques at the local high school. Pursuing a lifelong interest in Mayan culture, Marguerite at 79 traveled to Guatemala to join granddaughter Brit in an exploration of Mayan ruins. At 84 she enjoyed a last desert hike to the cave of Cave Creek, rock hopping the creek and looking for petroglyphs.

Marguerite was a friend to children and animals who somehow knew they were safe with her. She was a woman of character who shaped her world with discipline and an iron will, sacrificing her wants and wishes to meet the needs of others. She adhered to a “live and let live” philosophy, never said an unkind word about anyone and never, ever complained.

Preceded in death by her parents and three of four siblings from Council; sisters Neva (Bradley Plummer), Pearl (Bud Hibbard) and brother Art Deeds (Alice Longfellow), she is survived by sister Helen (Everett Harrington), son Judd (Sandra) of Boise and a daughter, (your nonna, ninos); granddaughters Brit (Mike) of Boise and your momma in Virginia, grandson Cole, Boise who shares a birthday with grandpa Max and a special place in his grandmother’s heart; three great-grandchildren and extended family throughout the northwest.

Marguerite asked to be cremated and interred beside Max in the cemetery at Star. Graveside services with immediate family members were held on August 23. Extended family and friends gathered to celebrate Marguerite’s life at 4:00pm in The Orchards at Fairview clubhouse, 1530 N. McKinney Lane. The family extends grateful appreciation to Jennifer, Tammy and Linda of Four Rivers Hospice, Dr. John Guicheteau and Todd and David at Aclesa Chapel. Special thanks go to Randy and Kathie Lyon who cared for Marguerite the last year of her life and made her final days peaceful.
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This is your GG, grandchildren. You were part of her life and she was part of yours for a short time, and she adored you. You were the freshest flowers in her garden, the sparklingest jewels in her tiara, and she loved you so. It is true that GG is dead. She won't be back, but our love for her survives in the memories we have of her. I will continue to share those memories with you from time to time in these pages and elsewhere. GG did not want us to forget her.