Marilyn Virginia Allen was born Marilyn Miller in Billings, Montana, on February 1, 1934, into the hard-working and fun-loving Miller clan. An only child, she inherited her father Dorsey’s laugh, resourcefulness, and love of animals. As a boy, Dorsey would ride his horse twelve miles round-trip down Jasper Mountain to Waitsburg for an ice cream cone, and as a young man he could harness eighteen horses to a wheat thresher before dawn, later putting Marilyn through college playing poker. Her mother, Mary, had a legendary green thumb, once shot a bear, was a Rosie the Riveter during the war, and could cook the midday meal for a wheat-threshing crew on a cast-iron stove plunked down in the field. Dorsey and Mary would come to own a series of taverns in small towns in Eastern Oregon and Washington with names like Rufus, Heppner, George, and Echo.

Marilyn rode her horse bareback along the Columbia River with children of the Umatilla Tribe, where her Uncle Joe ran the Texaco station and sponsored the baseball team. Her limitless curiosity and ability to amuse herself took root in this free-range childhood. Marilyn took her pet chipmunk, Benji, to school in her pocket and had a pet goat, Pappy. She took piano lessons from a traveling teacher, recounted making a lot of mud pies, and once hid on the floorboards of their Model T because she was embarrassed to be seen in a front-crank car.

Marilyn attended high school at St. Paul’s Girls’ School in Walla Walla, where she made the first of many lifelong friends, worked at a soda fountain, and began an academic career marked by never missing a class. Hedwig Zorb, the headmistress, encouraged her to apply to college, and in 1952, Dorsey and Mary put her on the train in La Grande bound for Mills College in Oakland. A member of the Mills synchronized swim team, Marilyn occasionally snuck out with her more adventurous friends to smoke and attend Communist Party meetings in Berkeley.

Following her passion for science, she transferred to the University of Oregon, where she pledged AΟΠ and, after graduation, attended the University of Oregon Medical School for postgraduate work in microbiology. It must have been here that she developed her reverence for the medical profession, because she loved going to doctors and poring over her lab results. In honor of this relationship—although it was a sustained, unenjoyable experience—Marilyn learned to use MyChart and did so up until a few weeks before she passed.

While lifeguarding over the summer at Pioneer Park in Walla Walla, she met and fell in love with a young business student, Dick Allen. After he returned from a stint in the army in Germany, they married and spent a year at WSU, where Marilyn had a microbiology fellowship and Dick finished business school. Starting their life together in Walla Walla, they bought a yellow Craftsman house across the street from the pool where they met, and Marilyn began her career as a medical technologist in the lab at Walla Walla General Hospital. They owned their own monogrammed bowling balls, took what would be a lifetime of trips to Sun Valley to ski and hike, and by 1964 had three kids under the age of five (Peter, Sarah, and Molly). A tiger mother before that was even a thing, Marilyn admitted in her later years that she would choose her children’s many activities by opening the Yellow Pages, closing her eyes, and seeing where her finger landed.

The Allens arrived on Bainbridge Island the week before school started in 1974, and after commuting to a lab at Harrison Hospital in Bremerton for a year or two, Marilyn’s passion for architecture and design led to a change of direction. To her family, it seemed like she had embarked on a career as a dog walker, banker, and psychiatrist, but in truth, as this lovely tribute from Coldwell Banker attests:

Marilyn was a guiding light for more than four decades, helping countless families find their dream homes and navigate the complexities of real estate with grace, wisdom, and compassion. Beyond her professional achievements, Marilyn will be remembered for her warm personality, unwavering integrity, and genuine care for her clients and colleagues. She was a mentor to many, always generous with her time and knowledge, and a steadfast supporter of those around her. Her legacy is one of dedication, excellence, and profound community impact. She was truly a pillar of the community, and her absence will be deeply felt.

Always a good athlete, in her 50s Marilyn began to run, eventually completing eight marathons. The second time she ran the New York Marathon, Dorsey picked her out of the thousands of runners on TV by her distinctive aquamarine visor and blond hair.

Marilyn’s ability to engage complete strangers knew no bounds. Often by the end of a flight, Uber ride, or 1-800 customer-service call, she would know someone’s life story and could be heard offering encouragement, celebrating their problem-solving skills, or dispensing advice. If you knew Marilyn, you knew she had a way of looking at things that stuck with you, like: “Did you ever notice how people’s arms match their legs?”

Marilyn’s motto later in life was marbles and mobility. She never tried to meditate and never stopped trying to figure out how to attach a picture to an email. She loved long phone calls with old friends, had a favorite seat at the symphony, delighted in the latest scuttlebutt, sewed 5/6 of a Chanel suit, swore by the Nordstrom happy-hour cheeseburger, and found peace in her morning strolls through her beloved English garden (thank you, Edgar), coffee cup in hand. She politely stalked artists she admired until they too were old friends. She looked forward to attending the Sun Valley Writer’s Conference every July and learned to back-in angle-park at the ferry terminal at the age of 88.

Marilyn liked to be surrounded by books, and they were always arriving. One, in fact, landed on her porch the day after she passed. She loved coffee more than water, could be counted on to get into it with TSA agents during the inevitable pat-down, and was not a fan of Starbucks’ new eco-lids.

Marilyn delighted in being a grandmother, living to expand little minds and worlds—which sometimes meant going through the Dairy Queen drive-through twice. Preceded in death by her husband, Dick, and her son, Peter, Marilyn leaves behind her daughters, Molly and Sarah; sons-in-law, Kris Krishna and John Pella; her beloved grandchildren, Virginia and Anthony; and the books. So many books…

The way Marilyn left this world was very on brand—without a hint of fuss on Saturday, May 24, at peace, still luminous, and surrounded by family. She expressly didn’t want a memorial, preferring to hear all the nice things people would say about her after she passed, while she was still alive, so her daughters threw her a surprise 90th-birthday party. Delighted, she declared: “As Larry David would say, this is my pre-dying party!” That doesn’t mean that someday in the future we won’t disobey her and gather in her honor, but just in case, please remember Marilyn as you last saw her—smiling, determined, and full of life, driving her black Mercedes, and interested in everything and everyone. In her memory, please read a book, look up the word sarcomere, keep your bird feeder topped off this winter, choose laughter, and, in her words, “Just be a good person.”