Marie Rosa (Ferraris) Boyden

Marie Boyden

January 12, 1923 ~ February 17, 2018

Marie Boyden, aged 95, died on Saturday, Feb. 17, 2018, in Prineville. She was born Maria Rosa Josefina Serafina Ferraris in Portland on Jan. 12, 1923, the first child of Santino and Adelina Ferraris (née Debe).

She was educated at St. Mary’s Academy in Portland and graduated from what is now Oregon State University, where she was senior class president and elected to Mortarboard, before beginning her teaching career at West Linn High School in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.

Language teaching—Spanish, French and English—was her vocation and one of the great joys of her life. In addition to West Linn, she taught at Southern Oregon College and in Toketee, Oregon, and Tulelake, California, before coming to Prineville in 1964. She taught at Prineville Junior High School and then at Crook County High School until her retirement in 1985.

To nearly the end of her life, she remembered her students and their struggles and triumphs with uncanny clarity. She worked tirelessly to build and consolidate an array of Spanish and French offerings at CCHS, believing that foreign language skills were not only a practical tool but essential to individual intellectual and personal development.

Like her parents, her brother, James Camillo Ferraris, preceded her in death.

She is survived by her husband of 70 years, Charles A. Boyden, of Prineville; her son, James Boyden, and daughter-in-law, Alisa Plant, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and by nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews, and now their children as well. May she rest in peace.

A Rosary will be held, Thursday, Feb. 22 at 6 p.m. at Prineville Funeral Home Chapel. A Funeral Mass for Marie Boyden will be said at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Prineville, on Friday, Feb. 23 at noon, with interment to follow in Juniper Haven Cemetery. Mourners are invited to attend a luncheon reception afterwards in the St. Joseph’s Parish Hall.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations in the name of Marie Boyden may be made to Catholic Charities of Oregon, 2740 SE Powell Blvd., Portland, OR 97202.

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