Marilyn Uhlig Skipton Groth, of Killingworth and Haddam died Sept. 13, a few weeks before her 91st birthday. She was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on Oct. 8, 1925, to Max R. and Katherine Uhlig.
Marilyn was a graduate of Classical High School and the Springfield Hospital School of Nursing. Her life was spent in the service of others, as a burn-unit nurse at Shriner’s Hospital for Children, as a troop leader and regional board member for the Girl Scouts of America, as the executive director of the YWCA in Springfield, and as the executive director of Sojourn, Inc., a social services agency for teen girls in Northampton, Massachusetts. A co-worker honored Marilyn by saying, “she was such a motivation for me, such an inspiration as director.”
Marilyn was an avid reader who loved music, art, history, and gardening. An advocate for healthy living, she was a participant in the Harvard Nurses Study. She spent her later years compiling a family genealogy, tracing her relatives to early 19th-century Germany. She was especially proud of her grandfather, a carver of carousel horses, and her father, an architect who designed, among other buildings, Trinity Lutheran Church in Springfield. She enjoyed going to concerts and museums, and just two days before her death completed a children’s story dedicated to her great-grandson.
Marilyn and her first husband Malcolm K. Skipton, Jr. “Jim,” who predeceased her, made their home for almost 43 years in Hampden, Massachusetts, where she served as a community volunteer, member of the garden club, and was a parishioner at Faith United Church in Springfield.
Marilyn moved to Killingworth in 1993 where she joined the garden club and was appointed to a regional council on aging. She married Ernest Henry Groth, previously of Newington, in 1999. They summered for many years on Pemaquid Pond in Bremen, Maine, and had recently moved to the Saybrook at Haddam in Haddam, where they enjoyed reading and painting together and visiting with new acquaintances.
Marilyn is survived by a family that loved and admired her, her husband Ernest Henry Groth; her children Malcolm K. Skipton III and his wife Deborah A. Geer, MD of Auburn, New York, Allyson Skipton Long and her husband William J. Long III of Killingworth, and Beth Marie Skipton of Killingworth; her grandchildren Courtney Skipton Long, PhD of Cos Cob, Gregory Patrick Skipton and his wife Kate Skipton, MD of Watertown, New York, Erica Skipton, MD of Sayre, Pennsylvania, and Kelsey Marie Long Paff and her husband Jeremy Patrick Paff, of Yardley, Pennsylvania; and her great-grandson Nathanael Stephen Paff of Yardley, Pennsylvania. She was predeceased by a granddaughter, Gillian Taylor Long.
She is also survived by her stepchildren Stephen Groth of Viroqua, Wisconsin, Janet Groth and her husband James Turner of Manchester, Massachusetts, and Marlene Dolan and her husband Christopher Dolan of Manchester, Massachusetts; her stepgrandchildren Helena Turner of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Patrick Turner of Portland, Maine, Taylor Dolan and his wife Nadya Ramierez-Dolan of Brookline, Massachusetts, Lyndsay Dolan of Marblehead, Massachusetts, and Bennett Dolan of Manchester, Massachusetts.
She will be especially remembered for “the small Things she did with Great Love.” (St. Mother Theresa)
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Killingworth Land Conservation Trust, P.O. Box 825, Killingworth, CT 06419, or the Shriner’s Hospital for Children, 516 Carew St., Springfield, MA 01104. Friends are invited to a graveside service at Old Cemetery, Chapin Rd., Hampden, Massachusetts, on Sept. 17 at 2 p.m. Arrangements in the care of the Guilford Funeral Home, 115 Church St., Guilford. To share a memory or leave a message of condolence for the family, please visit www.GuilfordFuneralHome.com.
