MARSHA ANNE BINGAMAN WEST -86, was born on January 11, 1938, to Roger Bingaman and Vivian Turner Bingaman in Sacramento, California. Marsha passed from this earthly home on November 7, 2024, at the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) Motherhouse in Monroe, Michigan, where she was an Associate. Marsha is preceded in death by her husband Don, her parents, her in-laws Phyllis Elizabeth Beeman West and Delmas Lynwood West, and her sisters-in-law Linda West and Kathleen (Kay) Dawley.
After graduating from Pierce High School in Arbuckle, California, Marsha married Donald West on February 26, 1956, in a church bedecked with almond blossoms. They attended the University of California at Davis. After a stint in the California National Guard, Don both farmed and worked in at Kordite plastic factory, then joined Marsha in beginning their teaching careers.
They started with jobs in different locations, but in 1974 they found jobs together in Forks, Washington and Marsha spent 27 years teaching English at Forks High School, while Don taught Ag shop. Marsha was a leader in her profession, and Gonzaga University’s Teacher of the Year for the Pacific Northwest for 1988, as well as Washington State Teacher of the Year for a previous year.
Their beloved parish, St. Anne’s, where Marsha taught CCD classes and was a Pastoral Associate, running services when priests weren’t available, led her through some of her happiest times and some of her darkest. Being a confidant to many young people put Marsha in the middle of the Catholic Church abuse crisis. As a teacher, she was often a person to whom young people came for help, and this took a toll on Marsha’s heart as she helped the children seek justice. Thankfully, she was able to receive excellent therapy, including art therapy, which not only helped heal the immediate wounds of that difficult time, but led Marsha to discover a previously hidden talent for creating art.
Marsha traveled to Vermont for a summer to attend Middlebury Breadloaf School of English. She did a lot of writing and thought about becoming a writer professionally. She’d been a reporter before, for a newspaper in Williams, California. But she decided against finishing her master’s program because, as she said at the time, “Everything I had to say, I was saying in the context of my relationships with my friends and family.”
Marsha and Don shared a hobby for several years of showing Irish Setters, winning awards and having a great time traveling with their beautiful dogs.
Toward the end of Marsha’s career, Forks High School joined the Concord Consortium, a group that was visionary in harnessing the possibilities of the burgeoning internet for educational purposes. They encouraged quality online teaching through Virtual High School long before most other high schools had considered it. They connected students with qualified teachers all over the country, making it possible for even tiny, rural schools to have a huge catalog of Advanced Placement classes available, thus offering the young people of Forks possibilities they’d never had before without leaving home.
Marsha wrote the first online AP English curriculum in the nation, with a high rate of students passing the difficult exam. She spoke to a national convention of all fifty state governors in Washington, DC on the benefits of online education for rural districts. Marsha’s online work expanded to include private consulting. She led the dream teacher’s life, sometimes watching the fall leaves change color in New England while visiting her daughter Pam, and spending a few hours every day facilitating businesspeople in India learning English online to fund her travels.
Then, in March 2009, Don died, an early victim of the swine flu epidemic, and Marsha’s life forever changed. Her heart broke at the loss of her beloved, but as she healed, she had a journey of realization. She’d always defined her life as a mother, as a wife, and now the world and its possibilities stood wide open to her as never before. She had never considered leaving her home in the rainforest, but she began thinking about becoming a nun, and researching groups of sisters who lead lives of service.
Marsha accepted an invitation to a six-month Monastic Immersion Experience at Visitation Monastery in North Minneapolis, and it was like no life experience she’d had before. The nuns live in an area known for gang violence and poverty, just a ten-minute drive from where George Floyd would be killed, but they hang a windsock on the front porch as a signal to the people of the neighborhood that they’re welcome to come inside to find acceptance, maybe a sandwich, a bus pass, a hug, a prayer, help with homework, whatever the sisters can offer them.
They are part of the neighborhood, and also “a place of delight and rest” in Salesian spirituality. Kids from the local high school come to volunteer, neighbors come by to show off new babies, Mass is held regularly in the living room, and it’s a busy place. An accessory wing, St. Jane’s House, hosts groups like From Death to Life, a healing group begun by mothers whose children were involved in homicide, both as victims and as killers, after one mother experienced God’s radical grace in being able to forgive, reconcile, and live with the young man who murdered her son. Marsha was amazed by what she experienced in this place and wished she could stay forever, but her six months ended, and she returned home to Forks.
Eventually, the IHMs invited Marsha to come to Monroe, Michigan for a trial period. Marsha lived in Norman Towers as she grew into her full vocation as an Associate member. She led communion services for those unable to get to church services. Marsha made time for her art, and had a showing of her work in the convent gallery. After closing down her consulting business, she used her experience to help A Nun’s Life online ministry. Marsha was happy to be able to live out her final years surrounded by the women of the IHM and their stories. Most, like her, had lived full professional lives before coming to the Motherhouse in their old age. Many had lived heroic lives, saving babies at the fall of Saigon and the like, and here they were now, in Monroe, Michigan, protecting the world with their prayers.
Marsha is survived by her daughters Pamela West and Donna Lynne West Moreno, and her son David West (MaryBeth) and her foster son Charlie MacLaren (Justis); her grandchildren David (Kristina), Steven (Natalie), Carissa (Ianto), Elizabeth, Fog, Katie (Misha), Genny, and Ali, and eight great-grandchildren. A Celebration of Life was held on November 16 at the IHM Motherhouse Chapel, 610 West Elm Avenue, Monroe, Michigan 48162. A memorial will be held in Forks, Washington on December 21 at St. Anne’s.
In lieu of flowers, Marsha’s activist spirit may be honored with a gift to the ACLU to continue their work protecting the defenseless against bullies and powerful cowards.
https://action.aclu.org/give/make-gift-aclu-someones-memory
