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Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 2, No. 14 - April 2, 2020
Inside
This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................7
Classifieds............................2
Entertainment......................2
Food.......................................6
Hawthorne............................3
Lawndale..............................4
Inglewood.............................5
Legals.................................6,7
Pets........................................8
Weekend
Forecast
Friday
Partly
Cloudy
67˚/54˚
Saturday
Partly
Cloudy
67˚/55˚
Sunday
PM
Showers
63˚/55˚
Chairwoman Gloria Gray Assures
Drinking Water is Safe and Reliable
We are prepared, said Chairwoman Gloria Gray during a recent @bankofthewest webinar. She talked about what Metropolitan and its member agencies are doing to keep the water flowing to SoCal during
this challenging time. Listen to a sound bite: https://youtu.be/QkZjPI7Gyo4 Photo West Basin Municipal Water District.
Mark and Marcia Marion Reminisce
About Their Life in El Segundo
By Duane Plank
Long-time El Segundo residents Mark and
Marcia Marion had a dilemma. They had
agreed to an interview with a Herald reporter
that would touch-on their more-than 50 years
of residence in the city. The interview was
set-up on a Monday and was to take place
at their home in the Northwest side of town
on Friday.
But two days after the interview was agreed
to, the seriousness of the pandemic novel
coronavirus took a 360-degree turn. On that
Wednesday, it was revealed that the NBA’s Utah
Jazz center Rudy Gobert had tested positive for
the virus. And that started the ominous tippingpoint
dominoes falling, with the NBA quickly
suspending its season. In seemingly lockstep
actions, the NHL, MLB, and virtually all sports,
except for horseracing, shutdown indefinitely.
State and local governments drafted regulations
that basically confined citizens to their homes,
people raced to local stores to hoard toilet
paper, and the term “social distancing” trended
to the top of Google searches.
The Marion’s dilemma: should they allow the
reporter, a total stranger, to enter their home
to conduct the interview on that rainy Friday
afternoon? Mark graciously greeted me at the
door to his house, saying “We are going to let
you in. We are glad to have you.”
Marcia Jane (Tuck) Marion has a long
lineage in El Segundo, with her grandparents
moving here a few years prior to the 1917
incorporation of the city. Mark and Marcia
are considered icons in the city, so much so
that when El Segundo celebrated its 100th
anniversary in 2017, they were selected to
post three-minute You Tube videos, filmed by
El Segundo TV, in which they expressed their
love for El Segundo.
Mark was an elementary school teacher in
El Segundo for 31 years, and after “retiring,”
spent more than a decade as a substitute teacher
in the neighboring Wiseburn School District.
Marcia, who graduated from El Segundo High
School, worked as a schoolteacher, toiled for
the airlines (Mark had an idea that if Marion
worked for the airline industry, they could
travel more), and ended up working for the
city of El Segundo in the finance department.
Marcia said that Mark is still recognized by
many of the students that he mentored, some
who still live in town. She said that even at a
Claremont brewery, Mark was recognized by
a former student, who shouted “Mr. Marion!
I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated
you, you taught me to read!”
Marcia’s grandfather was J.W. Gilbert, who
settled locally in 1912, looking for work in the
oil industry at the soon-to-be bustling Standard
Oil facility. He was a chemist in the oil industry
and founded the Gilbert’s Department Store on
Richmond Street.
Marcia’s father, Arthur, worked for Standard
Oil, then took a shot at running a store adjacent
to Gilbert’s venture on Richmond Street, before
returning to the oil-industry when the Great
Depression, which started in 1929, shuttered
businesses nationwide. Tuck returned to
Standard Oil, where he worked into the 1960’s
before retiring.
Marcia’s mother, Marieum, was a schoolteacher
in El Segundo, but was let go in the
early 1920s during a time when, Mark said,
some school district’s employment policy was
geared towards hiring men because they were
the breadwinners, not married women. The
prevailing thought at that time, the Marion’s said,
was “jobs should go to men.” Marieum found a
teaching gig with the nearby Wiseburn School
District, and spent more than four decades
there, teaching students, many who were of
Japanese descent. This was in the World War II
Mark and Marcia Marion
See Marion, page 4