Marylou, 87, passed into everlasting life with God, surrounded by her beloved family, on April 29, 2018, in Blacksburg, VA.
She was born in New Bedford, MA, on November 26, 1930, to the late Colonel (U.S. Army, ret.) Lewis Peyton and Helen Jean Cherry Jordan. She was also preceded in death by her sister Helen Jean Jordan Heffernan; brother-in-law Joseph D. Klunder; brother-in-law Francis Patrick Heffernan, Jr.; nephews Francis Patrick III and Brian Heffernan; and her children’s father, Lieutenant Colonel (U.S. Army, ret.) Thomas J. Anthony.
Surviving to celebrate her life are: Daughter Helen Peyton and her husband Van White and their children Sarah Jean Elliott, San Francisco, CA, David Peyton and his wife Laura White and their children Isabella Rose, David Peyton II, and Jaxon Sterling, Roswell, GA, and Ruthanne Elizabeth White, Nashville, TN. Son Thomas James (T. J.) Anthony, Jr. and his wife Connie Marshall and their son Thomas James III (Jack), Blacksburg, VA. Daughter Aileen Agnes Anthony, Blacksburg, VA. Sisters Ann Cherry Jordan Klunder, Alexandria, VA, and Sister Lillian Peyton Jordan RSM, Belmont, NC. Nephew Matthew Lewis and his wife Marylee Klunder and their four children; nephew Loren Jordan Klunder; niece Gretchen Klunder and her husband James Raber and their children Christy and Kurt and Kurt’s wife Janell and their three children; Joseph Klunder, Jr.’s three surviving children; nephew Mark Klunder and his two living children; and nephew Timothy Heffernan.
Marylou loved her family beyond all reasoning and loved life intensely through the many, many people she cared for. “Love is the most beautiful word in the English language,” she often said. She loved America and its mountains, waters, flowers and trees. She loved the Army as an Army brat, Army wife and Army mother.
She fell in love with Blacksburg, where she and her family moved in 1963, often proclaiming that the Lord blessed Blacksburg as “Heaven on Earth” and marching down Main Street at the front of the Fourth of July parades. And she loved bright pink, from her lipstick to her signature and the flowing ribbons painted on the sides of her car.
She happily volunteered constantly, in many capacities, for many civic organizations, even sewing costumes for local theater groups when she was in her 80’s and selling tickets at the Lyric Theatre well into her 87th year.
When she was 82 and 83, she traveled twice to Haiti with her church group from Our Lady of Nazareth in Roanoke, VA. During the 1960’s, she ran the swimming pool on the Hill in Blacksburg; in the 1970’s, she worked at the Marriott Hotel and then Townside Realtors; in the late 1980’s, she started her own firm, Marylou Limited Realtor, and ran it until she retired in 2007; she then worked part-time until Fall 2017. For over 55 years, she cooked huge Thanksgiving feasts for large family gatherings, and she was always baking coffee cakes, pies, cookies and other goodies for one and all.
Marylou was a faithful parishioner at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, 1205 Old Mill Road, Blacksburg, VA, where visitation will be held at 4:30 – 6:00 today, Wednesday, May 2, 2018, with a funeral Mass to follow immediately.
A champagne reception in the parish hall will immediately follow Mass. Friends are invited to come and reminisce with Marylou’s family.
