Marj D Denney Hunt , November 21, 1950 — November 22, 2018

Marjorie D. Hunt of Columbia died at home just before dawn on November 22, 2018. Friends had celebrated her 68th birthday at her bedside the evening before. A graveside service will take place at Columbia Cemetery at 2:00 p.m., December 1, 2018, with Rev.

Clyde Ruffin officiating. Marj was born in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, the daughter of Hugh Robert Denney and Maxine (Zihlman) Denney.

From her childhood days in rural Iowa, Marj loved the beauty of natural things, a love that would later be expressed in striking ceramics, water colors, and sketches. A junior high biology teacher gave this love a scientific focus, and for the next quarter century she threw herself into the scientific study of natural processes, eventually receiving a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Missouri. After she became a mother, her attention turned to other puzzles about the nature of life, other wonders.

She left the laboratory and devoted herself not only to her daughter Kate, but the lives of other people, children and adults alike. She had a talent for friendship and for guidance. In later years, after Kate left for college, more and more of her attention went to thinking about broader connections: the social ties that make a collection of mere houses into an organic neighborhood; the forces that bind the fate of people living in Columbia to the fates of people living everywhere on the planet.

People, animals, plants. Our common fate, our roots in the earth, to which we all return. Survivors include her husband, Douglas Hunt, her daughter Katherine Hunt, sisters Martha Denney and Jeanne Denney, brother Jon Denney, and numerous nieces and nephews.

In lieu of flowers, friends are encouraged to donate to the Sierra Club or Nature Conservancy, or to plant a tree in her honor.

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