Marilyn Harrison

Mar­ilyn Con­stance Har­rison passed away peace­fully on May 17, 2026 at the age of 87. She was born August 30, 1938 to Clyde Brat­tin Mer­ritt and Mar­garet Blanche Mer­ritt (Brett) in Neo­sho, Mis­souri.

Most of Mar­ilyn’s early years were in Webb City, Mis­souri and Ott­awa, Kan­sas and she earned a Bach­elor of Sci­ence Degree in Ele­ment­ary Edu­ca­tion from Pitt­s­burgh State Uni­versity in Kan­sas in 1962. Soon after start­ing col­lege, Mar­ilyn met Myril Alfred Har­rison, the love of her life, who also resided in Ott­awa, Kan­sas. They met at the local gro­cery store and became acquain­ted when Myril began giv­ing her rides home for week­end vis­its. Myril finally asked Mar­ilyn out on a date and they were mar­ried in Ott­awa July 19, 1959.

Fol­low­ing their wed­ding, Mar­ilyn and Myril lived in Kan­sas City, Mis­souri and then Sioux City, Iowa where they star­ted a fam­ily and met many of their lifelong friends. The major­ity of their years were spent in West Des Moines, Iowa where they raised their four chil­dren.

Mar­ilyn was a ded­ic­ated mother, home maker, and super mom. She was the ulti­mate host­ess and loved to cook, bake and plan spe­cial fam­ily gath­er­ings and hol­i­days. She also loved a good game of cards and those close to her nick­named her “Wing­dinger.” She spent many years schlep­ping their four chil­dren to base­ball, bas­ket­ball, dance, scouts, church, swim­ming and music les­sons, and other activ­it­ies. She was a model of love and help­ing oth­ers and she reg­u­larly volun­teered in her com­munity, includ­ing at St. Timothy’s Epis­copal Church and St. Andrew’s Epis­copal Church where she served on the vestry.

As the kids matured, she began sub­sti­tute teach­ing for West Des Moines Schools, and served as a sec­ret­ary for Drake Uni­versity’s psy­cho­logy depart­ment in Des Moines from 1984 to 1986. She had a bit of an entre­pren­eur­ial spirit and pub­lished MacRes­cue, a word pro­cessing manual to the Mac. She earned a Mas­ter of Sci­ence Degree in edu­ca­tion from Drake Uni­versity in 1988 where she focused on Spe­cial Edu­ca­tion. She was pas­sion­ate about help­ing spe­cial needs stu­dents and served John­ston School Dis­trict as a spe­cial edu­ca­tion teacher from 1986 to 1993. Mar­ilyn was nom­in­ated for a State of Iowa Teacher of the Year award in 1992, and she was nom­in­ated and was a final­ist for a Dis­tin­guished Teacher of the Year award by the Uni­versity of Iowa in 1993. She served as a spe­cial edu­ca­tion con­sult­ant at Heart­land Area Edu­ca­tion Agency in John­ston from 1993 to 2001.

Mar­ilyn wanted noth­ing more than a lov­ing fam­ily. They enjoyed many hours boat­ing and water­ski­ing at nearby lakes and count­less camp­ing trips to many of the coun­try’s national parks. They espe­cially loved camp­ing in the moun­tains of Col­or­ado and spent their final years in Lake­wood, Col­or­ado.

Mar­ilyn is sur­vived by her four chil­dren: Chris­topher (Kristine) Har­rison, Jen­nifer Har­rison (Mike), Sarah (Stephen) Reyn­olds, and Lynn (Ben­jamin) Flach, eight grand­chil­dren, four great grand­chil­dren, and cous­ins Bill Brett, Susan Brett Herod, Mary Brett Lee and many, many friends and fam­ily mem­bers.

Mar­ilyn and Myril were insep­ar­able and had more than 70 years together until Myril passed in August of 2025. A funeral ser­vice will be held on June 5th at 11 am at St. Andrew’s Epis­copal Church. Lunch to fol­low. 5720 Urb­andale Ave Des Moines, IA 50312. Dona­tions can be made to the Alzheimer’s Found­a­tion.