Marcia May Gillespie Sundquist (1924-2022) died a day after celebrating her 98th birthday.
Marcia was born in the small town of Stephen, Minn., near the Canadian border. Her mother was a teacher. Her father the town banker. The bank failed during the Great Depression, and the family moved to Edmonton, Canada, where her father was a grain broker. He died when Marcia was only eight, so her mother raised Marcia, her two sisters Beatrice and Doris and brother Stewart.
Marcia graduated from the University of Alberta with a B.S. in home economics, which kindled her lifelong interest in healthy food and nutrition. After college, Marcia worked in dietetics at the University of Toronto, taught home economics at the University of Guelph and ran a touring cooking school for the Maple Leaf Milling company.
She loved the vast Canadian West and was always proud of her Canadian heritage and citizenship. In 1956, Marcia emigrated to the U.S. to get a master’s degree in consumer economics at Michigan State University. There she met her future husband, Wesley B. “Burt” Sundquist, who was completing his doctorate in agricultural economics.
After completing their degrees, they moved to Minneapolis, where Burt worked at the University of Minnesota, and they had two sons.
From 1965-71 they lived in Washington, D.C., an exciting and tumultuous time in our nation’s capital.
In 1971, Burt was recruited to become head of the Ag Econ Department at the University of Minnesota, so they returned to the Twin Cities, where they built their family home in Roseville.
In 1986, they became founding members of the 1666 Coffman Condominiums complex in Falcon Heights, where they lived for 36 years until recently moving to Salt Lake City to be with family.
Marcia’s very full life included serving as a docent for the Saint Paul Science Center, and as parish administrator for the First Congregational Church of Minnesota, where she and Burt worshipped for decades.
She is survived by her husband Burt, sons Wes (Nola) and Derek, two grandchildren and sister-in-law Kathy Sundquist.
A memorial service will not be held, and donations to OspreyWilds are welcomed (ospreywilds.org/).
