Marsh, Merrilyn Delano of Wellesley, passed peacefully surrounded by family on October 5, 2022. Born the day after Christmas in 1923, “Merry” was the daughter of Merrill Potter Delano and Hazel Holmes Delano of Waban, MA. She grew up with her two sisters, Nancy Delano Childs and Sally Delano Wightman. All three sisters worked at their father’s clothing store Delanos in Boston.
Art and family encompassed Merry’s long life. She attended Bennett Junior College, graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, followed by a fellowship to Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris in 1947. She returned to Boston, establishing a sculpture studio and teaching where she became the first sculpture instructor at the then new deCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA. She had many exhibitions and shows, including a solo perspective at The Copley Society of Art on Newbury Street, in Boston in 1996. Her sculptures and bas-reliefs can be found at campuses at Tufts University in Medford and Grafton, and at Duke University in Durham, NC. Her bronzes are also in her hometown of Wellesley at St. Andrew’s Church courtyard where she was a parishioner, and in the town’s Central Park. She continued her lifelong work, painting and drawing into October of this year.
As she was known by family, “Bezzie” was an active member of The New England Sculptors Association, The Copley Society of Art, as well as an avid golfer at Wellesley Country Club. Merry is predeceased by her husband of 59 years, George Estabrook Marsh, and survived by her three sons and family; Merrill Delano Marsh of Portland, ME, George E. Marsh Jr. and wife Sandra Henderson-Marsh of Essex, MA, Robert Houston Marsh and wife Lori Van Deusen Marsh of Vienna, VA and four grandchildren Kyle Delano Morand and husband Ross Morand, Nathaniel Houston Marsh, Eliza Lee Marsh, and Patrick Spencer Marsh.
To honor Merrilyn Delano Marsh and continue her art legacy, in lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA). You may make your gift through their online portal: smfa.tufts.edu/give/ Service will be private, information to follow.