Marilyn (Groom) Chamberlin, 93, was born May 9, 1931, in St, Joseph, Missouri, the daughter of Harley and Crystal (McCartney) Groom, and died on June 7, 2024. She attended a rural, one-room school, and graduated from high school in Maysville, Missouri. She attended college in Maryville, Missouri, obtained a degree in Nursing from the University of Kansas Medical Center in 1954, and married Vernon A. Chamberlin in Lawrence, Kansas, on June 4, 1955.
Marilyn worked at the K.U. Medical Center two years, and at hospitals in Los Angeles (where their daughter was born), and in Stillwater, Oklahoma (where their son was born). Vernon accepted a job at the University of Kansas in 1963; they moved to Lawrence, and Marilyn worked at Lawrence Memorial hospital until her retirement in 1995.
She served on the Douglas County Public Health Board 1970-1978, and the Douglas County Visiting Nurses Board eight years, she was also a charter member of the group that founded Hospice Care in Douglas County in 1979, and served eleven years on the Hospice Advisory Committee. She was a member of the American Nurses Association, the League of Women Voters, the Kansas University Women’s Club, and had a longstanding interest in genealogy and family history.
Marilyn was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, a brother, Keith Groom, and a sister, Carol Hargin. She is survived by her daughter, Marlene (Lawrence, Kansas), her son, Mark (Grand Junction, Colorado), and an honorary granddaughter, Julia Silverstein (Minneapolis, Minnesota).
There will be a private inurnment in Pioneer Cemetery at a later date. Online condolences may be made at rumsey-yost.com. The family suggests that memorial contributions may be made in Marilyn’s name to the Douglas County Visiting Nurses Association, and may be sent to Rumsey-Yost Funeral Home: P.O. Box 1260 Lawrence, KS 66044.
