Marian Vandergriff

Marian Donnell Vandergriff passed peacefully on December 18, 2024. Her service will be at 11 am, Thursday, December 26 at Ash Creek Baptist Church in Azle, Texas; family to receive visitors at 10am. Dr. Wesley Shotwell will officiate with interment immediately following at Ash Creek Cemetery.

Marian was born to Kate Spann and William “Bill” Eli Donnell in Matador, Texas on December 27, 1929. Marian had seven siblings whom she dearly loved. After spending her early years in West Texas, including happy days on her Grandmother Donnell’s farm in Throckmorton, and a time in Bryson where her parents built, owned and operated the Marian Hotel, her family moved east. First to Springtown, then to Azle, where she resided until her death. A 1948 graduate of Azle High School, she was a class officer, on the volleyball team and cheer squad. 

She married Ernest Cherry, the father of her children, on an icy Valentine’s Day in 1951, together they raised two daughters. Family was the center of Marian’s life. She doted on her children, siblings, mother, nieces and nephews, but her dearest title was Grandmother to her five grandchildren. She had a special way of lavishing love and meeting every grandchild where they were. They called her Grand, and each will assure you they were her favorite.

After high school, she began a 50-year career as a bookkeeper and office manager, whether working downtown for Dean Bros Oil Company, on Main Street at her own bookkeeping and answering service or with and for her sister and brother-in-law, Jane and Gene Stevenson. Marian was an artist at heart: happiest when creating and sharing the fruits of her labor. She designed and sewed clothing for herself and family, once personally complimented by Jackie Kennedy on the flight line at Carswell Air Force Base for the suit Marian had designed, sewn and worn for the occasion. She taught her granddaughters to sew simple dresses for an African outreach ministry.  An oil painter, she favored subjects like her own father and uncles who cowboyed on the open range, and wildlife, especially birds. She recently illustrated a book written by a dear friend. Marian was a baker and candy maker, renowned for her Waldorf Red Cake and dipped chocolate candies and saw her cake ministry as a way to reach those in need of comfort. A water skier for decades, she took up snow skiing in her sixties, last hitting the slopes when she was 80. However, accepting Christ as her Lord and Savior as an adult marked the seminal moment in her life, and her quiet, diligent prayer life sustained and supported so many in need.

 Marian is preceded in death by her parents; former husbands, Ernest Cherry and Johnnie Vandergriff; sisters, Katherine Webb Kramer, Geraldine Raper, Pauline Owens, Naomi Hearell Stewart; brother, Charles Donnell, and several nieces and nephews.

She is survived by her daughters, Janet Byars and husband, Mark, of Azle, Elizabeth Wagstaff and husband, Robert of Abilene; grandchildren, Cole Byars and wife, Brittany, of Bella Vista, Arkansas, Kate Verhulst and husband, Otto of Fort Worth, Dr. Rachel Warner and husband, Alex of Dallas, Caroline Wagstaff of Denver and John Miles Wagstaff of Abilene, along with three great grandchildren, Margretta and August Verhulst and Jack Warner; as well as her sister, Jane Stevenson and husband, Gene; and brother, Tom Donnell and wife, Regina. She is also survived by niece, Lauren Stevenson and many more nieces and nephews, her caregivers, and friends. Pallbearers are her grandsons and grandsons in law, and nephews, Jason Donnell and Ryan Donnell. Honorary pallbearers are nephews, Dan Owens, Scott Donnell, Galen Raper, and Brent Stevenson.