Marjorie Marie Crosby

Marjorie Marie Crosby was born April 2, 1925 on the Buysse farm just outside of Minneota, Minnesota. She lived on the farm with her parents until age 4 when the family moved to the town of Minneota. On the farm, the family spoke mostly the Belgian language since both Julius and Nathalie were originally from Belgium. Because of this, Marjorie was bilingual with English and Belgian all her life and loved to occasionally entertain us with the Belgian language. Marjorie attended Minneota public schools until 8th grade when she transferred to the newly built St Edwards Catholic grade school. Her class was then the first graduating 8th grade class in the spring of 1939. During this time Marjorie took years of piano lessons from the nuns at St. Edwards, who taught her to play beautifully. She went on to become an accomplished piano player and it became one of her favorite hobbies. She even continued to play for other residents at her assisted living and memory care facilities. She then attended Minneota public school and graduated second in her class the spring of 1943.

After high school, Marjorie held a number of jobs around Minneota, including a stint at the infamous Big Store in town and the Marshall newspaper doing type setting. After a while that yearning for adventure led her to move to Denver, Colorado for about a year. The availability of suitable jobs led her back to Minnesota, where she decided to attend the Minnesota School of Business to learn secretarial skills. After obtaining her degree there, she landed a job working at Green Giant in Le Sueur, Minnesota, where she worked for 5 years. It was in Le Sueur where she took golf lessons and learned to golf. Golf proved to be her favorite sport throughout her life. In fact, Marjorie was in Dwan ladies golf league all the way up until age 94. At this point, Marjorie decided to give city life a try and landed a job at Lamar on 6th and Hennepin in Minneapolis. One Friday after work, she and some friends decided to go to Murray’s bar just around the corner from Lamar. Wouldn’t you know, she met the love of her life, Willard Crosby, at Murray’s. They courted for about a year and were married on October 8th, 1955, at St. Edward’s Catholic Church in Minneota.

Marjorie spent the rest of her years being a loving wife and mom to 3 kids, 4 grandkids and 2 great-grandkids. After the kids were teenagers she took a job as a secretary at Control Data (Ceridian) and retired at age 64. She loved gardening, golfing, taking walks, dancing, music and playing the piano, occasional vacations and trips and also—I think she kind of liked to shop! In her retirement years, Marjorie and Willard spent many days up at their cabin near Barnum, MN and they took trips in March each year to Naples, Florida to beat the cold. Through it all, Marjorie lived her life in service to her Lord Jesus and it is this faith that gives us comfort that she is now with her savior.

Marjorie was preceded in death by her parents, Julius and Nathalie Buysee; brothers, Edward and Lawrence (Janet) Buysse; sister, Jeanette (Tom) Lahr; and husband, Willard Crosby. She is survived by her son, John (Jill) Crosby; daughters, Paula (John) Shivers and Janet Crosby; grandchildren, Nicole Bisco, Aaron (Ashley) Crosby, Annie Crosby, and Cassie (Reed) Clabaugh; and great-grandchildren, Arthur Crosby and Louis Clabaugh.