Marian Doris (Lay) Eier, 76, of Pullman

Marian Doris (Lay) Eier was born Oct. 9, 1938, in Boise, Idaho, to Ona and Andy Lay. She passed away Sunday, Feb. 8, at home under hospice care in Pullman, Wash. She is survived by her husband, Douglas D. Eier, and her sister, June (Lay) Derie, of Weiser, Idaho. She graduated from Council, Idaho, high school in 1956 and from Lewis-Clark Normal School in 1958. She financed her college tuition with summer work at Zim's Plunge in New Meadows, Idaho, and with kitchen work at the college cafeteria while living in Talkinton Hall. She was 19 when she married Doug on Aug. 27, 1958, and when she started her first year of teaching at Weiser, Idaho, with a two-year provisional teaching certificate. Her B.S. in elementary education and biology, and her master's of natural science in botany and biology were awarded by the University of Idaho in 1960 and 1968. She taught 34 years, retiring from Pullman schools in 1994 after teaching primarily first grade. She put Doug through his B.A. and he supported her for her final undergraduate degree year. No student loans were necessary and evidently state budgeting made the college experience more nearly affordable in this era.
Marian had an athlete's life in outdoor recreation. She taught cross-country skiing at the family ski lodge in the Blue Mountains south of Pomeroy, Wash., for 17 winters from 1976-1993 under the auspices of Pullman Community Free University. She also helped Doug introduce white-water rafting to dozens of folks over 20 years of Community Free U classes for beginners. She and Doug celebrated retirement in 1995 by riding their bikes across the U.S. from the mouth of the Columbia to the Florida beaches (they took turns riding a bike leg while the other drove the motor home). They rode 60 miles each day. Marian's sister writes of their childhood raised on a ranch as follows:
Here are some great memories from being raised together on the ranch on Cottonwood Creek Road south of Council, Idaho.
Marian was a teacher beginning at a very early age. (I was a first-grader when she was an eighth-grader.) Marian taught me so many things before I even started school. She taught me how to cut paper dolls out of the Sears catalog and then she helped design some clothes, too. She loved to read and had many great comic books. Also, she read many stories to me as well as helped me learn to count, the print and read simple words.
She was always so great to give me a little sister advantage when we played basketball in the rim that was on the side of the barn. We played many hours of baseball with Bobbie, the dog, being the fielder in the field by the house. We had a red clay spot at the bottom of the High Knoll at our Council ranch where we built very small cliff dwellings.
In the winter, she would pull the sled up the High Knoll and have me sit in front of her on the sled, so we could rush down the hill on the white snow drifts. Many times our one-quarter-of-a-mile road to the highway drifted in and we walked over the snow drifts. When I was 5 I would rush over the snow drifts to meet her at the school bus — one time we were drifted in for 19 days. She helped me learn to ice skate on our small creeks or on a small pond by the highway when she was in college.
She took me fishing in the two creeks and the river on the ranch. She was very patient when I snagged the hooks on the tree branches.
She pumped me about a mile on her bike so many times down the wonderful smelling wild rose and syringa edged country road to the Weiser River where she taught me to swim.
She herded the sheep on the spring range and many times Mom and I would join her with a picnic lunch. One time just before she went to girls state, she was in a hurry and rode her bike down the hill like Mom had said not to do. With a very bloody eyebrow area from crashing the bike and hitting her head, she rode about a half of mile to the house. As I remembered, she went to girls state in Boise with a very black and blue swollen, stitched spot above her eye.
She was so great to take me with her when she went the high school basketball games and, sometimes, to the movies when Mom and Dad went to Grange on Friday nights.
She gave me a birthday party when our folks were gone and marched at State Grange. She took all my young friends swimming in the river, and had a wiener roast and marshmallows on the river. Later, at the house she fixed cake and ice cream for us, and tried to get us all in our sleeping bags our on the lawn before the folks came home.
I really missed her when she went to college in Lewiston. Years later, she lived in Pullman when I was a senior in college at Moscow, and we spent lots more time together. As the years passed, we would make arrangements to meet and visit when was in north Idaho for Ag in the classroom or Delta Kappa Gamma. Childhood memories are God's golden memories."
There will be a celebration of Marian's Life at the Pullman Moose Lodge on Saturday, Feb. 14th from 1 to 3 PM hosted by her fellow Beta Sigma Phi sisters.