Marian P. Wiehle

Obituary information for Marian Wiehle:

Marian Wiehle passed away on Tuesday, January 2, 2024. She lived a long life of 98 years and was widowed in 2018 after the passing of her husband of 73 years. She was born in Roanoke, Virginia the second of two children of Mary Frances Beckham and Leslie Lee Pitchford.

She met Carl K Wiehle, a Merchant Marine cadet on a blind date in 1943 and they married on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1945 in Roanoke, Virginia. After WWII they moved to Ventura County, CA and then the Bay Area until Carl finished his studies in civil engineering and graduated from UC Berkeley.

Marian and Carl moved to Albuquerque, NM for four years while he worked at Kirtland Airforce Base and then moved back to the Bay Area. Marian was a housewife and was busy raising two children while Carl worked as a civil engineer at SRI in Palo Alto. Later they moved to Fairfax, Virginia when Carl started working for the DOD in DIA in 1979.

Marian had a great love of antiques and fine art, which we believe came from her father who bought and sold antiques. She was a professional shopper and her collection of shoes and dresses were something to behold! She and Carl spent many hours doing genealogy research often in the Library of Congress and court houses in the South. She excelled at transcribing the difficult to read handwriting on old records. Carl always said that was a huge bonus in their genealogical research. Marian and Carl were also very active in their local Lutheran Church in Virginia, and she contributed with sewing many of the quilts for the Church’s quilt making group.

Marian was a true southern belle and she was friendly with everyone she met and loved to make people laugh.

Carl and Marian moved to Santa Fe, NM in 2015 to be closer to family. Marian is survived by her two children Yana Merrill, Kurt Wiehle (Spring VanCleve), two grandchildren Riva Merrill (Dylan O’Connor) and Lee Merrill (Jolene Duran), relatives Louis Wiehle, Patricia Touloup and numerous nieces and nephews.

The service for Marian will be Saturday, January 13, 2024 at 11:00 a.m. at the Rivera Family Funeral Home, 417 Rodeo Road, Santa Fe, NM. The burial at the Santa Fe National Cemetery will be at a later date.