Benny (Blades) Marcuson

Benny Lee (Blades) Marcuson passed away November 26, 2024 at Knife River Care Center in Beulah, ND.  Services will be held at 10:00 AM CT on Tuesday, December 3, 2024 at Knife River Care Center Chapel with Pastor Jeremy Nelson officiating. Benny will be laid to rest on December 7, 2024 next to her husband Wally at the Lund Covenant Church Cemetery, Dresden, KS.

Benny was the daughter and last surviving child of Benjamin and Edna Blades and the youngest of their seven children.  She was named for both her father, Benjamin as well as a brother Benjamin who predeceased her as an infant. She was born in Rush Springs, Oklahoma December 16, 1925.

She grew up on a ranch near Gladstone, New Mexico and after graduation from high school worked at Tinker Air Force base in Oklahoma City to earn money for college.  She attended The University of New Mexico in Albuquerque beginning in January of 1945 and met her future husband Waldemar (Wally) Marcuson one evening at a Baptist Training Union meeting held at the Missionary Baptist Church there.  Wally was stationed in Albuquerque as a member of the United States Army Air Corps.  She returned to the farm in Abbott, New Mexico and in the fall attended New Mexico State University in Las Cruces majoring in home economics but did not return for the spring semester as her father had his first heart attack.   She took the teacher’s exam in the summer of 1946 and taught grades 1-6 in Abbott for the 1946-1947 school year.

After Wally’s military service in WWII, they married in New Mexico on June 6, 1947 and moved to a farm near Dresden, Kansas where their four children were born.

As Wally took advantage of career opportunities, they lived briefly in Australia; Oberlin, Kansas; York, Nebraska and then settled in Greeley, Colorado.

Benny and Wally had a passion for sharing and serving.  They were foster parents for one infant and two children while living in Oberlin and she also worked as a nurse's aide at the Oberlin hospital.  In Nebraska, Benny became involved with the Christian Women’s Club while also working as a nurse's aide. In Greeley, she volunteered at the Crises Pregnancy Center for many years. She and Wally made numerous mission trips to Honduras and together were very involved with Estonian Christian Ministries and travelled to Estonia in support of the ministry.  She was a gracious host to the many friends made on these trips.

After Wally passed away in 2008, Benny moved to Stanton, ND to live near her eldest daughter Janice Karges and her husband Marshall and then lived for the past nine years at the Knife River Care Center in nearby Beulah, ND.

As an avid gardener, an adventurous cook (and a child of the depression era and the dust bowl), nothing went to waste and she was renowned for her canning and baking skills, especially her breads. She was also an accomplished seamstress and one of her most cherished possessions was her sewing machine, which, with four children, she put to good use.  Like most of her generation, she made a virtue out of thriftiness.

Mornings for Benny started with coffee and reading the bible, often breaking out with the chorus from a hymn over the course of the day.

Benny is survived by her son Randy and his wife Linda of Creedmoor, NC, daughter Janice Karges and her husband Marshall of Stanton, ND, daughter Lynn Callaway and her husband Bill of Elba, AL and daughter Karen Napoli and her husband Paul of Golden, CO, 13 grandchildren, two step-grandchildren and 32 great grandchildren.

Arrangements are conducted by Barbot Funeral Home, Beulah and Hazen.

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