Merrill Foto News
Marie Ellyn Hamilton Marrier
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Marie Ellyn Hamilton Marrier, age 75, of Merrill, passed away unexpectedly on Sunday, May 9, 2021 at the Aspirus Wausau Hospital, from cardiac issues. Marie was born on October 2, 1945 at Marinette General Hospital in Marinette, WI to Louis Arnold Hamilton and Velma Glen Ellen Rude Hamilton, both originally of Rhinelander, WI. She had one brother, Jack Allan Hamilton, who was 4 years her senior. Marie grew up in the Town of Scott west of Merrill, having moved to this area at age 8 weeks. She attended a one room schoolhouse for her entire 8 grades of elementary school, a fact over which she expressed both pride and lament. Marie was a 1963 graduate of Merrill Senior High School, 1966 graduate of Columbia Hospital School of Nursing, Milwaukee, WI, and of the first Family Nurse Practitioner class at the University of Wisconsin Department of Family Practice Residency in Madison at the St. Mary’s site in 1976. Marie was most proud of being the first certified nurse practitioner in the northern third of Wisconsin, starting in the mid seventies under the tutelage of Michael Mikkelson, M.D. She was an RN for 42 years and an FNP for 34 years, 17 of those at the Family Medical Clinic in Merrill, in a team practice with MK Mikkleson, M.D., 13 years at the Wausau Medical Center Department of Family Practice in Wausau, in team practice with DP North, M.D. and AM Waldman, M.D. The last 3 years of her career were spent practicing at clinics in Wausau, Stevens Point, Medford and Tomahawk for Family Planning Health Services of Wausau, WI. Marie considered these last 3 years as a donation to the reproductive health cause, which she felt strongly about being a “sixties rabble rouser” as she referred to herself. She also liked to say that “one had to be able to afford to work at FPHS!” Marie married the love of her life, Wayne J. Marrier, on June 11, 1966 at Our Savior’s Norwegian Lutheran Church in Merrill, WI, where she had been both baptized and confirmed. She and Wayne were the first couple married at the current Logan Street location of Our Savior’s. Marie was quite proud of that fact, as her parents had been the first couple married in the Trinity Lutheran Church, another Norwegian Lutheran Kirke, in Rhinelander, WI. Marie enjoyed doing extensive genealogy work on both her Norwegian and Swedish heritage. The culmination of her 10-year Rude family history search was a 2-week reunion pilgrimage in 2005 to Hurdal, Norway with ten other American relatives, a trip which Marie personally planned and organized for the group. Along with her sister-in-law, Pamela Kanitz Hamilton, she also did extensive research on her Scottish and English Maine heritage. She had traveled extensively in the U.S., proud of the fact that she had been to all the states except Rhode Island and Alaska. Marie thoroughly enjoyed spending her winter months with Wayne in Orange Beach, Alabama. Marie was the first volunteer Ombudsman at Pine Crest Nursing Home in Merrill, a position she held through the Wisconsin State Department of Aging and AARP. She was also an active member of the Merrill Historical Society, Friends of TB Scott Library, and Christ United Methodist Church, having served on several committees and serving as a Liturgist at services. Marie was a charter member of the Columbia Hospital School of Nursing Alumni Association and the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners. She also was a longtime member of the Wisconsin and American Nurses Association. Marie looked forward to and enjoyed doing a Civil War reenactment of her great grandmother, Mehitable Jane Young Hamilton of Greenville, ME, who had worked in the Civil War hospitals in Washington, DC for four years, and with the Civil War Nursing at the Prairie River Middle School Civil War Days.