In Memory

Marsden Price - Class Of 1939 VIEW PROFILE

Marsden Price

Jan 29, 1921 - Dec 30, 2017


Marsden Price died of natural causes at the age of 95 in Berkeley, CA. He is survived by his wife of sixty-six years, Barbara; his two children, Nancy Elizabeth Price Robinson and her husband Charles (“Rob") and Kenneth Marsden Price and his wife Wendy Katz; two grandchildren, Ashley Price Gillie and her husband Doug and Gillian Price and her fiancé Ryan Johnson; and two great grandchildren, Graham Price Gillie and Quinn Lillian Gillie.

No services are planned. The family will remember him in a private ceremony.

Marsden was born to William Hyde Pride and Emma Paul (Price) in Tokyo, Japan. He was their youngest and only surviving son—his two older brothers died in infancy. His father, an economist teaching at the Imperial University, died when he fell down a gorge while on a hike when Marsden was only six months old. Soon thereafter Marsden and his mother left Japan, returning first to Emma's native New England before settling in Claremont, California. Later in life, Marsden often regretted that he had never known his father, but the loss also made him eager to provide the fathering for his children that he had missed. 

Marsden graduated from Claremont High School and Pomona College. World War II interrupted his education and was a formative influence on his life. Serving as a medic with the Marines, he took part in extraordinarily bloody battles on the islands of Guam and Okinawa. These battles were traumatizing: to the end of his days, he thought and spoke of events from the war. When he returned from the Pacific theater, he earned a master's degree in English with a thesis on Mark Twain from Claremont Graduate School. He taught for 12 years at Citrus Union High School and Citrus College in Glendora. After that he moved to Oakland City College and then to Merritt College where he taught for 43 years (1960-2003). At Merritt, he twice served as chairman of the English department and was honored with an award for outstanding teaching. He thrived on working with students, developing close personal relationships with many of them, and, if his hearing had not declined, he would have continued to teach indefinitely. His two most famous students probably were the quarterback Bill Kilmer (Citrus College; UCLA; Washington Redskins) and the political figure Huey Newton of the Black Panthers.

Marsden was an avid sports fan and long held season football tickets to both the 49ers and the Cal Bears. He was exceptionally fond of animals and shared his life with one or more dogs for many years. He also loved the outdoors, particularly the mountains around Lake Tahoe. He first visited Fallen Leaf Lake when he was about six years old and returned there every summer except when he was overseas during World War II. In his late teens, with his best friend Bob Jones, he hiked in a single day peak to peak across the entire Crystal Range in the Desolation Wilderness area. He was even more proud of pouring his sweat and heart into the building of a rustic cabin on property he purchased when he was only eighteen years old. Built gradually over many years, that cabin became his true home. He has passed on a strong attachment to Fallen Leaf Lake to several generations.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial donations be made to Alzheimer's Foundation of America and Defenders of Wildlife.
 





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