Marian Cecelia Tessier

Marian Cecilia Tessier, 85, of Sautee Nacoochee died Wednesday, November 2, 2016, at Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville, of complications following a fall.

Marian was born July 21, 1931 in a cabin in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana to Stephen Barbre Tessier and Camilla Humphreys Tessier.  Her father was a farmer, her mother a nurse.  She was one of six children: Stephen Dale, Ella Marie, Mary Camilla Joan, Joseph Eugene (Blue), and James Nathaniel Tessier. 

 She attended a very small country school until she left home to attend the convent boarding school St. Joseph’s Academy in Baton Rouge for her high school education.  She then went to LSU for two years where she met Hanson Lee Guidry.  She left school when they married July 8, 1950.  They lived in Opelousas, Louisana where their first daughter, Dale, was born.  Hanson got a job with Davidson Chemical Company in Lake Charles, and the couple moved to Sulphur where daughters Caye, Leah, and Mary Jo were born.  Hanson’s company offered him a position in Cincinnati, Ohio and the family moved North in 1962.  Their youngest daughter, Gina, was born there, the only Yankee of the bunch. The family moved to Baltimore, Maryland in 1968.  As a stay at home mother, Marian was active in the PTCA of her daughters’ schools, in the ecumenical life of the Catholic churches they attended, and of various clubs, such as Great Books Discussion and groups.  When Hanson and Marian divorced in 1973, Marian went back to school and earned her bachelor’s degree in Marriage, Family, and Child Counseling from Antioch College.  She moved to Sonoma County, California and began practicing as a therapist, concentrating on treatment in addiction counseling.  Eventually she and a partner shared a private practice.  Upon retiring, she moved to Murphy, North Carolina.   In her later years she moved to Sautee, Georgia to live with her daughter. 

Marian was a creative and loving mother, sharing life’s adventures with her daughters.  She was the kind of mother who would abandon housework for a blackberry picking expedition.  She loved camping, she could start a fire with one match and keep it going for a week and could cook a 5-course meal over the fire (including strawberry shortcake).  Family vacations usually revolved around following some historical path and she wanted to stop and read every brown marker on the highway.  Hanson complained that it made the trip longer, but she was adamant.  She had a green thumb, loved gardening and had a garden in her front yard that caused passersby to stop to take pictures or ask about who designed the garden.   She was an accomplished seamstress and sewed most of her children’s clothing.  She made prom gowns and every daughter’s wedding gown.  She could have sewn a house if she had had enough fabric.  She loved music all her life, but had no opportunity to learn an instrument, so she sang a lot.  She had a song for every occasion and knew all the words to all the verses.  She listened to and introduced her daughters to a wide variety of music genres.  All of her children were given the opportunity to learn piano, too bad two of them were hopeless (loveable, but hopeless).  She was crazy smart.  She loved to read and encouraged that in her daughters.  She took them to the library and didn’t restrict the number of books they were allowed to check out.  She read to them aloud and made sure they owned books.  She loved language and words.  She was a prodigious opponent at any word game; Scrabble, Balderdash, Boggle.  She also loved card games.  She played Bridge in various clubs and with friends.  But she also played cards with her kids.  She was interested in and curious about people, what they did, what made them choose the paths their lives took, what they had for dinner.  She could talk to anybody, anywhere, about anything.  Her children were sometimes embarrassed by this talking to strangers, but it didn’t stop her.  It infected them at a later date (like a virus) and now they also tend to chat up random strangers.  There was a lot of laughter in her house. 

She is survived by her five daughters, Cecilia Dale Runnoe of Oakland, California and her husband Roger and her children Dr. Jessie Caye Runnoe and Jeb Hanson Runnoe, Dr. Marian Caye Guidry of Sautee and her children Andrew Wyatt Mullinax and Stephen Wilde Mullinax, Sharon Leah Hileman of Concord, California, her husband Joseph and her children Jenna Maya Adamo and James Anthony Adamo, Mary Jo Hess of Portland, Oregan and her husband Glen and their children Lt. William Shelby Hess and Marshall Bailey Hess, Dr. Gina Dorlac of Fort Collins Colorado and her husband Warren and children Nathaniel Tessier Dorlac, Elliot Page (Elly Belly) Dorlac and Owen William Dorlac as well as her sister Mary Camilla Joan Hollier of Georgetown, Texas.

She is predeceased by her parents, Stephen Barbre Tessier and Camilla Humphreys Tessier, five of her siblings, Stephen Dale Tessier of Claremont, California, Ella Marie Ewing of Innes, Louisiana, Joseph Eugene (Blue) Tessier of Abbeville, Louisiana, and James Nathaniel Tessier of Houston, Texas.  She is also predeceased by one grandchild, Jonathan Wesley Mullinax of Cartersville, Georgia and her husband, Hanson Lee Guidry. 

A reception for Marian Tessier will be held on Saturday, November 5, at 1:00pm, 96 Wren Hill, Sautee-Nacoochee with a memorial service following  at 2:00.  Mortuary services were provided by Memorial Park Funeral Home in Gainesville, Georgia. 

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to Myers Elementary School, 2676 Candler Highway, Gainesville, Georgia 30571.  Funds will be used to provide books to low-income students. 

“I come from the past.  My root stock is French, Irish, Scots, English, and more.  A rich mix. I am the total of all that has gone before.  I am my mother’s brow, my grandmother’s intelligence. My great-grandfather’s love of roses lives in me, my grandfather’s love of the earth and growing things.  From where comes the love of music?  Where the need to produce artistic magic with pen and paper?  So much I don’t know.  But these I know:  the last few generations.  From them I spring, partly them, wholly me.  They said, “Yes!” to each other.  They said, “Yes!” to me.”  Marian Tessier, 1999

Memorial Park Funeral Home, 2030 Memorial Park Road, Gainesville, GA  30504 is in charge of arrangements.

Send online condolences to www.memorialparkfuneralhomes.com.