Martha “Marilyn” McLaughlin, 81, passed away with family present in her West Fork, Arkansas, home on August 9, 2021.

The youngest of five children, Marilyn was born to the late Edward and Edna Harr on February 27, 1940, in the small town of Canalou, Missouri. She began her adult life in Los Angeles, California, where she worked as a telephone operator before meeting David Keller McLaughlin, a young pilot transplanted from North Carolina.

The two married in June of 1958, sold Marilyn’s 1937 Dodge, and flew Dave’s 1946 Taylorcraft back to North Carolina where their first child, Becky Renee, was born in 1959. The following year, Marilyn and Dave moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where their second child, Bonny Ellen, was born. Their third child, Susan Elaine, was born in 1964 while Marilyn and Dave were living in Richmond, Indiana, and preparing to travel overseas under the auspices of the Presbyterian Mission Board. Marilyn and Dave spent two years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Marilyn taught school and Dave worked as a bush pilot.

Upon returning to the States in 1967, Marilyn and Dave moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, where they lived in a changing neighborhood and became active members of Central Presbyterian Church. It was there that their fourth child, Joseph David, joined the family. In 1969, Marilyn, Dave, and their four children moved to Almyra, Arkansas, where Dave partnered with Glenn Grandgeorge to open the hangars and hoppers of Grand Prairie Flying Service. After Glenn passed away, Marilyn became Dave’s mainstay in the flying service, taking an active role in keeping the flying service up and running with her keen bookkeeping, office management, and scheduling skills. (She even put her expertise as a seamstress to use in reupholstering their Piper Comanche in red leather!)

After serving the southeast Arkansas farming community for fifteen years, Marilyn and Dave sold the flying service and bought a farm in the Boston Mountains of Northwest Arkansas. There they entertained cows, cats, dogs, friends, and an ever-growing number of grandchildren for the next thirty years. Marilyn’s final move was down the mountain into West Fork, where in 2016 she and Dave took up residence in a house built from Marilyn’s exquisitely drawn blueprints.

A multi-talented woman, Marilyn was known for her practical skills as an accountant, bookkeeper, tax consultant, and troubleshooter of ills great and small as well as for her creativity as a seamstress, visual artist, and woodworker. She also loved to have fun and was very good at it: some of her favorite activities were dancing and teaching others to dance, listening to and making music, playing board games and winning, reading and sharing books with family, and watching birds and squirrels interact. Wife, mother, and grandmother par excellence, Marilyn is survived, and will be sorely missed, by her husband, David, four children, Becky McLaughlin (Pat Cesarini), Bonny McLaughlin Stitt (John Stitt), Susan McLaughlin Jordan (Scott Jordan), Joseph McLaughlin, eight grandchildren—Finn Cartmell, Mary Ellen Stitt, Jane Stitt, Anna Stitt, Elizabeth Jordan, Emily Jordan, Andrew Brannan, Moses McLaughlin—and one great-grandchild, Magnolia Nimmo.

A memorial service is being planned for the fall. Memorial gifts may be made to one of Marilyn’s favorite local organizations: 7Hills Homeless Center (www.7hillscenter.org), Cooperative Emergency Outreach (www.ceofayetteville.org), or Heifer Project International (www.heifer.org).