A Strong, Adventurous Sort...

Swimming
In the cool waters
I am aware
Of the pull
At my feet
And unwittingly
I am upset
And am heading
In the opposite direction.

Life
In the comfortable years
Is not quite
So comfortable.
There is a tug,
A pull, as it were,
Of diverse currents,
And my cool waters
Are suddenly a
Whirling eddy.

I am home,
Yet not really.
I am torn between the
Comfort of familiarity
And the longing
For the exotic.
Always when there,
I ached for my family.
And yet, now,
The family is too familiar,
And the far off
More enticing.

Marlene DeVore
January 14, 1996

In Loving Memory of Mom

Marlene J. DeVore, of San Jacinto, Calif., died Nov. 18, 2007, at Redlands Community Hospital in Redlands, Calif.  She was 76.  Memorial services were held Wednesday, Nov. 21, in San Jacinto.

She is survived by a daughter and son-in-law, Nan and Ron Lindsey of San Bernardino, Calif., a son, Don DeVore, and a beloved granddaughter, Avery DeVore, both of Buffalo, Wyo.

Other survivors are a sister Beverly Maunu, Duluth, Minn., and a brother and sister-in-law Robert and Bonnie Burt of Center Valley, Penn., and many nieces and nephews.

She taught for more than 50 years. Her career included teaching positions in Minnesota, Liberia West Africa, Illinois and North Dakota, where she was a reading specialist and award-winning advisor of the high school newspaper in Belcourt, N.D.  After returning to California in 1986, she taught third grade for seven years at Sugar Hill Elementary in Moreno Valley.  Following her retirement from Sugar Hill, Mrs. DeVore became a certified instructor of English as a Second Language (ESL) at the University of California at Riverside, and went on to Taiwan for a year teaching English to high school students.
She then returned to Moreno Valley where she taught ESL classes for several years and then was a tutor to kindergarteners and first graders.

Mrs. DeVore was a life-long teacher.  She will be sorely missed by family and friends.  Her legacy of education, love of other cultures, nature, and reading and writing lives on through her own children and the many generations of children and adults she touched throughout her career and life.