Memorial Services for Marian Crook will be on May 14, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. at the First Lutheran Church in Rhame, ND.  Burial will follow in the Tuttle Cemetery, Rhame, ND.  Fellowship will follow at the Bowman Lodge where the family will be staying.

Marian Crook, 89, Mandan, spent one last night with her three daughters at
Sanford in Bismarck before passing away peacefully in her sleep Monday, February 21,
2022, in true North Dakota form, in the midst of a blizzard.
Marian Magdalene (Silbernagel) Crook was born in the Rhame, ND, hospital,
located above the bank, on January 6, 1933, the fifth daughter of Christian Anton (Andy)
and Lillian (Hovick) Silbernagel.
Marian was raised on her parents' farm, just down the road from her
grandparents' Deep Creek Township homestead in Slope County in southwest North
Dakota and was somewhat of a prodigy. She started school at the age of four because
the teacher in the one-room Harmony School in Deep Creek Township wanted a girl in
the school that, at the time, had only boys. During her second and third grade years,
she boarded with the teacher in the school, returning to the farm on weekends and
holidays and during the summer.
The Harmony School closed at the end of Marian's third grade year, and she
moved to a one-room school in nearby Cash Township, where she attended and
boarded with the teacher the next two years. She went to sixth grade in Rhame, and
when the Deep Creek School re-opened in her seventh grade year, she went back to
school there, and by then she was driving a car, so she did not have to board with the
teacher anymore.
She learned to drive her parents' Model A Ford when she was about 8 years old,
and by age 10 she was driving the tractor and helping her dad in the field. She later said
her back troubles in her old age were a result of lifting 5-gallon gas cans to put gas in
the tractor when she was 10 years old. Although she was the youngest of five girls, she
was her dad's "hired man" while her sisters spent their time "prettying up," and she
drove the tractor until her last years in Slope County.
She graduated from Rhame High School at age 16 and enrolled in business
school in Rapid City. While she lived there, she auditioned and was chosen for
membership in the prestigious Paha Sapa Women's Choir, which toured all over South
Dakota performing for large audiences. She and her lifelong pal Helen Brown had many
adventures over the years.
When she finished school, she moved to the state of Washington, where her
older sisters lived, and where she worked and cared for the Silbernagel grandkids.
There she met a handsome soldier from Mississippi named Garland Crook, stationed at
Fort Worden, and they were married in 1952.
They moved back to the farm north of Rhame after their wedding and Garland's
discharge from the Army, but when the Korean War broke out, Garland re-enlisted, and
they spent much of the next 20 years living around the country and the world, including
several years on the island of Okinawa.
When Garland retired, they once again came back to North Dakota to the farm to
allow "Mom and Dad" to retire, by this time with four children, Sarah, Andy, Lillian, and
Thomas, in tow, and a fifth soon to be born. Sadly, their marriage ended after those
hard years on the farm, and Marian and her youngest daughter, Beckie, moved to
Dickinson, where Marian earned her nursing degree. She said she had always wanted
to be a nurse, but when she got out of high school she wasn't old enough to get into
nursing school, and then she fell in love and followed her soldier husband around the
world. During their Army years in El Paso and on the farm near Rhame, she was a LPN,
and cared for many people at the nearby Bowman Hospital. At age 50 she went back to
school and earned her RN degree.
After graduation, she and Beckie moved to Grand Forks, ND, where she worked
as a nurse at United Hospital until her retirement. In her early retirement years, she
moved around the country to provide child care for her grandchildren, before finally
settling in Mandan, where she lived at Liberty Heights for many years, and Edgewood
Vista, and for the last few years she enjoyed entertaining the staff and watching the
birds at her many feeders outside her window at Sunset Drive Nursing Home. She could
name them all. She loved chocolate and she had a generous heart to the end.
For a time she lived just down the hall at Sunset from her sister, Junette Henke,
her longtime pinochle partner, until Junette's death in 2020. They were a mean pinochle
team.
She was preceded in death by her parents, her four sisters, and her grandson
Craig Charles McLaughlin II. Surviving her are her children, Sarah (Craig) McLaughlin,
Andy Crook, Lillian Crook (Jim Fuglie), Thomas (Betty) Crook, and Beckie (Jason)
Walby; grandchildren and their spouses, Eric (Carrie) Crook, Christina (Chris) Lowe,
Kathleen McLaughlin (Jesse) Richardson, Tommy (Whitney) Crookson, Lisa Cassarly,
Matthew (Jaimee) McLaughlin, Michael McLaughlin, Chelsea and Rachel Sorenson,
Duncan and Loren Crook, and Jacob (fiancée Ashley Wanner) and Ryan Walby, and
many great-grandchildren, and one great-great grandson.
Services are planned for spring and arrangements are being handled by
Krebsbach and Kulseth Funeral Service in Bowman, ND. Condolences and memories
can be shared with her family at their website, krebsbachfuneralservice.com.
The family wishes to thank her many care providers, too numerous to list, but
especially the Sanford palliative care team and her special care team at Sunset Nursing
Home. May her memory be a blessing.

Memorial suggested to the National Parks Conservation Association at ncpa.org or mail to: 777 6th St. NW Suite 700, Washington DC 2000-3723