Chatfield-Taylor—Marian (Auritt) Chatfield-Taylor, 78, on January 14, 2024, peacefully, at home in San Francisco, Calif. Marian was born on January 23, 1945, in Philadelphia, Pa., to Ruth and Jack Auritt. When she was three years old, her family moved to Norfolk, Va. Marian grew up in the Jim Crow South, an experience that shaped her lifelong commitment to social justice causes. She ascribed her early religious education to her father, whom she accompanied for many years to the synagogue, as well as her mother’s profound spirituality. Marian left the synagogue when she heard the rabbi speak from a nationalist Zionist position, which she found deeply disturbing.
Marian attended Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y. In 1964, she met Charlie Chatfield-Taylor and they married in 1965. After Marian graduated from Sarah Lawrence in 1966, she and Charlie moved to Cambridge, Mass. They bought a house in Stonington, Conn., shortly after their first daughter, Mercedes, was born in 1968. Their second daughter, Jessica, was born in 1970.
In fall 1977, the Chatfield-Taylors moved to Tomales, a very small town in West Marin, Calif. The family’s time in Tomales was a good one. But in 1978, Proposition 13 was passed, and the local high school announced it would have to cut costs. Concerned about their children’s education, Marian and Charlie decided to return to Stonington, which had a good high school and where they still owned a home.
After returning to Connecticut, Marian worked at the Women’s Center of New London in various capacities assisting battered women, ending up as its director of outreach. Since her youth Marian had been engaged in antiwar efforts, and now she began working on behalf of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. In 1995, she participated with a group of 100 women who traveled by train from Helsinki to Beijing, China, to attend the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women. The women came from different countries, spoke different languages, and represented every generation from late teens to early 80s.
While doing peace work, Marian encountered and worked with Quakers. She eventually accepted an invitation from a member to New London Meeting and began attending in the mid-1980s. Marian believed in actively living her way into the life of the meeting before seeking membership, which she did around 1988. She served as co-clerk of the meeting in 1997–1998, and was also active in New England Yearly Meeting. Her belief in nonviolence led her to obtain a master’s degree in conflict resolution from Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va., in 1998.
After returning to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1999, Marian began attending San Francisco Meeting and transferred her membership there in 2002. She has served on the Hospitality and Community, Peace and Social Concerns, and Ministry and Oversight Committees. Her vocal ministry came from a deep understanding of her personal experiences and observations. Marian also served on the board of directors for Ben Lomond Quaker Center, was a regular attender at the meeting’s Bible study, and worked for American Friends Service Committee from 1999–2001.
Marian and Charlie were married for almost 59 years, something neither one of them could have imagined when they started out. “It is a constant appeal; we are the Sun and the Moon to each other,” she wrote in her diary in 1978. Charlie misses her more than he can express, calling her “an exceptional human being.”
Marian is survived by her husband, Charlie Chatfield-Taylor; two children, Mercedes (John Flett) and Jessica (Angel); and four grandchildren.
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