Marion Ganzel, fondly known as Teedie, passed away peacefully on December 10, 2024, at the age of 100. She was a beloved daughter, sister, aunt, and friend who lived a life full of adventure, love, and faith. Her journey began on July 21, 1924, and she graced this world with her presence for a century.

Teedie’s earliest memories were growing up in Westwood, CA. Her father put her on a horse when she was five and slapped it on the rump. She loved it, became an equestrian and loved horses all her life. When she fell off a horse, her father made sure she got right back on. Her greatest discipline growing up was the fear of disappointing her father, Louis Charles Ganzel, Jr.

Her high school years were in Hackensack, NJ. When she was 16 she rode her bike from home, across the George Washington Bridge, because she wanted to see Manhattan for herself. Her parents were avid tennis players and taught their two girls to play doubles with them. Nancy and Teedie were regulars at the Princess Anne after they moved to Virginia Beach. Teedie followed Nancy here to help her with Mark and Peter, and her parents moved down when Virginia Beach was still a beach town of 6,000.

She loved Galilee Church and became a member for life soon after she arrived. The body and hands of Jesus from Galilee helped preserve her during her long life, with pastoral dinners, visitations, communion in her home, Seaside Rehab., and Discovery Commons, more recently, right up to the end.

She graduated from her grandmother’s alma mater at Wilson College in PA, with degrees in biology and chemistry, because her father always told her she had to be able to make a living. She had vivid memories of working in industrial and medical research labs in CA and NJ. Teedie earned her master’s in literature from Hollins College, over three summers and taught elementary school in New England where English was their second language and was a teacher and librarian in VB public schools for 29 years, but never joined the union. She also taught in an American school in Crete to live in the Greek Isles, and explore Rome.

In the early 60’s, she booked passage on a freighter and sailed around the world from NY, through the Panama Canal, toured Southeast Asia and the Mediterranean where she rode camels among the pharaoh’s tombs near Goshen, walked in the steps of Jesus in Jerusalem, and followed Paul’s journeys to Rome. She wrote a course of lectures on Paul’s witness and taught them for years at Galilee . She loved Rome, and one of her fondest memories is spending one summer there with Nancy and her sons’ Larry and David. She was also drawn to the wilderness, particularly Yellowstone National Park, where she camped and hiked with David, his wife Dottie, and their girls Amy and Kayla; and the Puget Sound, Olympic Peninsula and Cascade Mtns., where she took the ferry from Seattle to Tillicum Village for salmon and chowder around the fire with the Tillicum Indians, Peter and his new wife Jane Drewry, and fished for salmon in the Boston Whaler one summer. She adored Mark, his warmth and humor, his love of literature and loved hearing about deep sea fishing adventures on the Outer Banks and getting the occasional tuna and wahoo filet. Teedie remained close to his wife Lori and their son Beckett and became a huge football fan when he played tight end at Syracuse. She depended on Larry’s frequent visits, to manage her apartment and enjoyed the venison tenderloins he provided at family meals with Barbara in Suffolk where they often hosted.

She loved discussing the Wall Street Journal with her dear friend Peggy Mordecai, whose family adopted her in as one of their own. As did her Irish cousins Hester and Peter Jennings in Clonakilty and their daughters Amy, Kaitlin, and Bevin. Long story there! In one of her three genealogy books on her family, The Story of an Anglo-Irish Family (1588-2002) , she said:

“I inherited my love of travel and adventurous spirit from my grandmother, Bessie Blackwell Bennett, who in 1909 took her three daughters to Ireland to meet her father’s family. My mother, Marion Clarke Bennett, kept a diary. I mirrored their trip when I went to Ireland in 1984 to meet my Grandfather’s family. Our families have enjoyed a close relationship ever since.”

Hester flew from Ireland to be with Teedie in her last hours and was with her at the end. Jeanne Paige drove up from SC to help her in her last days, and Sue Mullen was there 3 times a day, ensuring she got everything she needed. “Truer friends, …” it is said. And naturally Teedie treasured family and friendship above all except Heaven. She had many close friends here in VB and around the world and care providers in the last couple of years. But she always had faith in her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and knew her destiny was in Heaven. Most of what she had in this life of intrinsic value she had already given away, but her final bequest was that:

“All that remains goes to family and friends. Please be loving and kind to each other, and remember that my love for you is greater than anything else. God bless you all and keep you safe forever. Love is the greatest thing in the world.” – Your Teedie

Teedie kept several diaries during her life, also wrote a book of poetry, three books on her family genealogy. One was on her early American heritage, from the Revolution through the Civil War, with the Mcafee brothers that helped settle Kentucky with Daniel Boone; and the Blackwells (grandmother Bessie Blackwell), newspaper editors and abolitionists in Vandalia, Illinois that succeeded in keeping it a free state. A second one on her German American heritage included her father’s grandfather Adolph Ganzel who emigrated through Ellis Island and fought with the 20th N.Y. Volunteer Regiment “Turner Rifles” at Chancellorsville and Antietam before he established a successful woolen importing business from Germany; and a third on the Anglo-Irish (1588-2002) tracing her maternal grandfather John Clarke Bennett, Esq., an Irish orphan that settled in Minneapolis, MN. worked his way through law school, at night, became a prominent railroad lawyer and had three daughters including Teedie’s mother, Mary Ann. In her final book she quite naturally quotes Plutarch:

“It is indeed a desirable thing to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors.”

During her last 15 years Teedie inspired, collaborated on and edited Daniel’s Rule of Law: Why It Matters, American Founding Principles, which was dedicated to her and published 2024. On her 100th birthday she was made an honorary citizen of Ireland by the Prime Minister and wherever she went, during her long life, she travelled in the wake of a conqueror, as a child of God, by the blood of the lamb.

Services for Teedie will be held at Galilee Church located at 3928 Pacific Ave,  Virginia Beach, VA 23451 on January 7, 2025 at 1:00 pm.