Marion Weisbrod Persons, beloved mother, grandmother, educator, artist, traveler, arts advocate, and lifelong cultivator of curiosity and creativity, passed away peacefully on April 29, 2026, at the age of 89, surrounded by the family and community she spent her life nurturing.

Marion Joyce Weisbrod was born on June 20, 1936, in Bishop, California, into a family in which science, faith, education, and civic life naturally intertwined. Her father, Howard Lewis Weisbrod, became a defining science educator in San Diego. He founded the Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair, taught generations of students, served as coordinator of the Science Services organization in Washington, and directed educational programming at the San Diego Natural History Museum in Balboa Park. Her mother, Dorothy Marie Grove, who was born in Ohio and became Dorothy Weisbrod upon marriage, lost her own mother at an early age and had once been offered the opportunity to attend university herself, but like many women of her generation, was directed instead toward secretarial school.

Born in the Eastern Sierra, rooted in Redlands and raised in San Diego, Marion was profoundly Californian. Part of her childhood unfolded among the orange groves surrounding Redlands while Howard pursued studies there, and it was in Redlands that her brother, Donald “Don” Paul Weisbrod, was born on August 24, 1942. Marion was close to her paternal grandmother, Effie Weisbrod, whom she affectionately called "Baby" long after childhood. As a girl she collected lizards and garter snakes, and once dropped a cat from a second-story balcony to test whether it truly landed on its feet. The beauty of the University of Redlands campus remained emotionally central to Marion throughout her life. Eventually the family settled permanently in San Diego during World War II.

Marion attended Kearny High School before transferring to San Diego High School, known then as "The Castle," where she graduated in 1954. During her years at Kearny she took one of Howard's science classes, in which he informed the students at the outset that his daughter would be held to a higher standard than everyone else.

Marion briefly attended San Diego State University, but she had always dreamed of attending the University of Redlands, just as her father had. Despite financial concerns within the family, she persisted toward the college experience she truly wanted. At Redlands she majored in Education and minored in Studio Art, studying weaving inspired by Japanese landscapes, ceramics, and other visual arts. Her roommate, Merle Avery, became a lifelong friend. The two were known to slip out after dark to pick oranges off the trees, and when university rules required women to wear skirts or dresses in the dining hall, they complied by secretly rolling up their pant legs and wearing trench coats to dinner. Marion earned her Bachelor of Arts degree on January 30, 1959, and remained devoted to the university throughout her life, regularly returning for traditions such as the annual Feast of Lights Christmas program, which she sang in while a student.

After graduating from Redlands, Marion began her teaching career in the newly forming Santee School District, working alongside her friends Mary Kay Engh and Ann Brandt. Schools had not yet been built, and classes were held inside private homes in the rapidly expanding suburbs east of San Diego. Marion and Mary Kay carpooled there from their apartments in Mission Beach, and the teachers became accustomed to checking their classrooms each morning for rattlesnakes before the children arrived.

On June 24, 1960, Marion Joyce Weisbrod married Charles "Chuck" Edward Persons, thereafter becoming Marion Weisbrod Persons. The match was quietly arranged by Chuck's Aunt Alice Houghtaling, who attended First Presbyterian Church of San Diego with Marion and wanted her in the family. Alice's son had dated Marion, but little had come of it, and when Chuck visited San Diego while beginning his PhD program at Stanford, Alice saw her opportunity and introduced them. Marion and Chuck famously bonded during a conversation about the behavior of two Galápagos tortoises at the San Diego Zoo, and the rest followed naturally. They married at First Presbyterian Church and spent their wedding night at the historic Mission Inn. Rather than immediately honeymooning, they later joined a trip to Europe led by a Redlands professor they affectionately called "Prof." The newlyweds first lived in a tiny apartment near the beach in Mission Beach. They later established their family home in Point Loma. In the 1990s, decades into their marriage, Marion and Chuck took sailing lessons together and purchased a captain's hat to settle, once and for all, who was in charge of their two-person boat — at least until it was the other one's turn.

Together they raised their children Lizbeth, Bridget, and Charles "Chip" in a household filled with books, road trips, camping, theatre, skiing, museums, music, and conversation. Marion believed people learned best through direct encounter with the world itself, a conviction her children later summarized as her belief in "the value of field trips." When Chuck needed to remain home for work during school spring breaks, Marion loaded the children into the station wagon and hauled the family trailer down the infamous Banner Grade into Borrego for desert camping trips.

That adventurousness shaped family life at every scale. When Lizbeth was nine years old, Marion took her by train from Tijuana to Mexico City and then by overnight bus into Guatemala City to visit her brother Don, who founded Icthus, a non-denominational ministry serving children and youth internationally. Travel for Marion was less about luxury and more about curiosity. She was adventurous, but not reckless. Sometimes she simply informed Chuck that she wanted to travel somewhere and that he was welcome to come too. Chuck, in turn, became skilled at organizing the itineraries and logistics that transformed Marion's enthusiasm into reality.

Throughout her life Marion remained a daring but thoughtful traveler, ultimately visiting more than forty countries spanning Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. She and Chuck explored destinations as varied as the Potala Palace in Tibet, the Elephant Roundup in Thailand, and the Great Migration in Tanzania, often with daughter Bridget alongside them, and on other journeys rode camels in the Gobi Desert and navigated the rivers of Brazil by small boat. Marion joined her father Howard and his younger brother Ken on an African safari led by the head veterinarian of the San Diego Zoo, an adventure captured in a series of news reports on KGTV Channel 10. Just after Perestroika she and Lizbeth traveled together through Russia and what is now Ukraine.

For years Marion and groups of women friends took the overnight Kopecky Bus from San Diego to Mammoth Mountain for weekends of Alpine and Nordic skiing. At Twin Lakes she won a cross-country skiing medal in her age group.

Creativity infused much of Marion's life. She worked in textile design, collecting fabrics from Guatemala, Peru, and Pakistan, which she transformed into clothing and wearable art under a homemade label called Fantasy Tops.

In 1976, Marion and Ruth Ely completed Master of Arts degrees in Education together at the United States International University School of Education. A friend celebrated the achievement by giving Marion a T-shirt reading, "MA doesn't mean Mom," a joke that perfectly captured a cultural moment in which women were claiming educational and intellectual identities. That same year, at the invitation of Rev. Paul Pulliam, Marion and Ruth co-founded City Tree School at First Presbyterian Church of San Diego. They served as co-directors for nearly twenty years, with Marion bringing her own particular conviction that children learn best not so much through being taught as through curiosity, creativity, delight, and respect for individuality.

Another major thread of Marion's life was arts leadership. The family first became involved in San Diego Junior Theatre in 1975 when Lizbeth enrolled there; eventually all three children, and later all three grandchildren, participated as well. Located in Casa del Prado in Balboa Park, directly across from the Natural History Museum where Howard had directed educational programming, Junior Theatre sat within the same world that had shaped Marion's understanding of civic and artistic life. Marion served for thirteen years as President of the Board, helping guide Junior Theatre through its transition from a city-funded Parks & Recreation program into an independent nonprofit, a transformation that helped secure its future for decades to come. That civic leadership led to service on the board of COMBO, the Combined Arts and Education Council of San Diego County, and in 1999 to the board of the Spreckels Organ Society, where she helped guide another nonprofit transition and continued serving for twenty-two years, until 2021.

Marion's cultural life was broad and deeply woven into San Diego's artistic community. She belonged to the Mingei International Museum, subscribed to San Diego Opera for thirty years, attended symphony, organ, and choir concerts, loved theatre, and participated in the Sisterhood of P.E.O.

Though deeply connected to First Presbyterian Church of San Diego, Marion became troubled in the early 1990s when the church adopted an increasingly conservative direction. When workers and volunteers were asked to sign statements concerning sexual orientation, divorce, and purity, Marion refused. Unwilling to support policies she believed harmed and excluded people she loved and respected, she resigned from City Tree School, effectively entering retirement at the same moment Chuck was offered retirement during the defense budget cutbacks of the Clinton administration. Together they found a more welcoming spiritual home at First United Methodist Church of San Diego.

Retirement only increased Marion's appetite for discovery and adventure. She and Chuck purchased an RV and traveled extensively, often with daughter Bridget, along the Oregon Coast, to Astoria, across the Trans-Canada Highway, and to family reunions in Canandaigua, New York, and Boulder, Colorado. When they were home, Marion and Chuck also cared for Lizbeth's daughters, Teah and Anya, several days each week. Even in later years she continued seeking small adventures, particularly enjoying AirBnB stays in Mission Beach and Borrego, places tied deeply to her emotional map of California.

Throughout her life Marion surrounded herself with artists, educators, travelers, musicians, church friends, theatre families, and cousins. Her home was filled with conversation, music, food, and laughter. She made a lifelong study of how to entertain elegantly without sacrificing time with her guests, preferring to have everything in order before they arrived so she could be fully present with them once they did.

Above all, Marion believed in enlarging people's lives through culture, travel, and direct experience. Much of her life had been devoted to creating for others the kind of expansive, encouraging world that earlier generations, especially women, had not always been permitted to inhabit themselves.

Marion was preceded in death by her husband Chuck on August 7, 2025. She is survived by her children Lizbeth, Bridget, and Chip; daughter-in-law Erin; former son-in-law Peter; grandchildren Teah, Anya, and Rory; brother Don; and many friends and loved ones whose lives were broadened by her warmth, imagination, creativity, courage, and love.

Her family hopes that those who remember her will honor her spirit by taking the field trip, inviting people in, remaining curious, supporting the arts, saying yes whenever possible, and helping others become more fully themselves.

Memorial donations may be made to Icthus International. Marion was a founding board member of this Christian non-profit to help children in Latin America. www.icthuskids.org

Friends and relatives are welcome to reach out to Marion’s family for details on the celebration of her life in June.