Marian Elaine (Johnson) Buck

Marian Elaine (Johnson) Buck was born in Arcata, California on August 25, 1925. She died in her hometown on November 5,

2021 at the age of 96 after a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease.

Marian was a lifelong resident of the Arcata/Bayside area, attending Old Canal School (on the Arcata Bottoms) and Pacific Union School, and graduating from Arcata High School in 1942. She left Humboldt County during World War II to pursue her lifelong career as a registered nurse.

While attending the threeyear nursing program at Children’s Hospital School of Nursing in San Francisco, she joined the Navy Nurse Cadet Corp. The war ended before she graduated from nursing school in 1945, and her position as a cadet nurse was never activated. She returned to Humboldt County and practiced as a licensed registered nurse well into her late 80s. While raising her son, she

enrolled at Humboldt State College to obtain a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing.

Her service to medicine started as a floor nurse at Trinity Hospital in Arcata. She also was assigned to the ambulance team at the Arcata Naval Auxiliary Air Station (now Arcata Airport), which was built during the war to test defogging systems (FIDO: Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operation) for airplane landings. Marian worked for Drs. Donald Bux, Charles Earl, Neil Watter and — for the last 20+ years of her nursing career — for Dr. Lawrence Senffner.

Marian was active in Eastern Star, serving as a Worthy Matron and Deputy Grand Matron, and she was an active member of the Registered Nurse Chapter of the Philanthropic Educational Organization (PEO). As a lifelong member of the Arcata Presbyterian Church,

she served on many church committees and boards. Marian also served on the formation committee of the Mad River Community Hospital after Trinity Hospital was sold and as president of the Arcata High School Parent-Teachers Association.

Throughout her active life,