Marcia Sue Schermerhorn

Marcia Sue Schermerhorn was born on Halloween in 1942 to C. Margaret and Floyd R. Patten in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She was their first and only child. However, Margaret remarried and had another daughter in 1948, Marilyn Cusick. After moving around, to Missouri and Colorado, Marci grew up in Paradise Valley, Arizona. She was one of only 37 people in her high school graduating class. She was involved in many things in high school, including Varsity Cheerleading, Pom Pom Captain, Senior Class Social Manager, Student Council Secretary, Vice President of the Girls Athletic Association, and participated in the newspaper and yearbook. She won the BabyDoll Queen and was awarded the girls best athlete award for playing catcher on the softball team. She loved to swim, roller skate, and ride her horse; Dina (an 18-hands-high Morgan), to school. One of her favorite stories from high school is the time she changed after P.E. and had a tarantula in her shirt, which she stripped off very quickly in front of the rest of the students (scary!). 

After high school she went to college for a semester before meeting Al Lancaster and getting married in 1961. They had three children; Toni, Tim and Tami. During that time, the family moved to Denver, Colorado. Marci worked at several companies as a bank teller and bookkeeper. After her marriage to Al ended, she married Gene Schermerhorn in 1973. Gene already had two daughters, Sindy and Shelly so they each adopted the other’s children. Marci then raised five children, which she loved. Marci’s house was always the house that had the extra children running in and out and staying for dinner. A fun story from this time is that driving a station wagon (affectionately called “the green weenie”) full of girls to a Rainbow Girls meeting one night, a muscle car pulled up next to her and started revving his engine. Marci did the same and peeled out (again in the station wagon) when the light turned green. Of course, the muscle car “won” but all the girls had a great laugh.

            Marcia loved the mountains, rainbows, the Colorado Rockies and butterflies. Even into later years she loved camping and getting outdoors. She loved to garden and tend flowers. She had a soft spot for all animals, and enjoyed many cats and dogs (and a horse and a chicken named Waddle Bottom) as pets over the years. In addition to sewing clothes for her daughters, she enjoyed other fabric crafts like cross-stitch, embroidery, and especially knitting. In retirement, she enjoyed reading and puzzling.

Marcia is lovingly remembered and survived by her sister, Marilyn Whited, four of her children: Toni Weller, Tami Lancaster, Tim Schermerhorn, and Shelly Fitzgerald, as well as her ten grandchildren; three of which she helped to raise for a time. She is also survived by twelve great-grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Denver Dumb Friends League at ddfl.org/dontation-center.