Marilyn DE FOI Polson was was born in Seattle, Washington on January 12, 1923, to Donald and Gladys Fern COOPER De Foi. Her mother died in 1933 and her father remarried, to Bertha PERRY White.
In 1942, Marilyn and Neil Calkins had a son, Jack Edward Perry, who was born in Seattle and raised by Marilyn’s stepmother’s parents, Burton and Martha Perry. Marilyn moved to Alaska in 1951 and in 1952 she and John “Jack” Palmer had a daughter, Patricia, and a son, Michael, followed in 1954.
Marilyn arrived in Seldovia in 1958, and in 1960, she married Pete Polson, who worked at the Wakefield Cannery and also owned the Admiral Theater. He bought the original Admiral Theater on the boardwalk from Jack C. Anderson, Jr. As a result of the urban renewal project after the 1964 earthquake, the theater was destroyed along with all of the other buildings on the boardwalk. Pete rebuilt the theater on Seldovia Street across from the City Office building. He and Marilyn lived upstairs and had two bull dogs, and at some point one of them made history when it bit Pete and took a chunk out of his cheek. The Admiral Theater closed down when a TV tower was built and Seldovians began to own their own televisions. The building later became Central Suites.
Marilyn died of a liver ailment on June 5, 1963. She is buried in the Seldovia City Cemetery in Plot #203.