C(lyde) Marston Case died on Wednesday, January 13 in Lawrenceville, NJ, in the house he and his wife, Margaret H. Case, bought more than 50 years ago. He was 93 years old. Marston was born in Omaha in 1927 and raised largely in Mound, MN. He was an alumnus of the University of Chicago (B.A. and M.S). He served in the U.S. Army occupying Italy in 1945-1946, and was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Air Force, serving as a seaplane pilot and navigator in the Pacific from 1953-1956, and in the Naval Air Reserves until the 1970s. Marston worked as a dance instructor in Minneapolis, a ranch hand in Montana, a seed deliveryman in Wisconsin, a lab technician in Chicago, and finally as a statistician from about 1960 until the mid 1980s, spending nearly 20 years at the Educational Testing Service.
He had many passions outside work and in retirement: attending reunions, playing piano, researching family genealogy, taking classes at the Princeton Adult School, painting watercolors, tending his compost pile, attacking home repair projects as if they were military engineering (cost overruns included), and reading and debating about all kinds of subjects. Everywhere he went, he talked with people about their backgrounds or about whatever he was studying just then.
Beginning in the mid-1970s, he spent dozens of summers in Montana, hiking in the Bob Marshall Wilderness and ballroom dancing. Having traveled the world, the place that he loved the most was the Big Sky Country, and his family and friends cherish the memory of visiting him there.
He spent most of the last two years of his life caring devotedly for his wife of 61 years after a fall left her bed-bound. He was preceded in death by his brother, Mark C. Case, and is survived by his wife, sister Virginia (Holly) Volkenant, sons and daughters-in-law Nathaniel and Ingrid Case and Timothy and Kim Case, grandsons Daniel (Roo) Case and Finnegan Case, and many nieces and nephews.
An open house will be held in his memory when vaccination allows. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be made to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research or the Montana Wilderness Association.