Marvel L Beell - Obituary

Marvel L Beell - June 12, 1937 - August 4, 2025, she was born in Hazen ND

(copied from the New Tribune Friday July 19, 1970) Faces and Places

The vital statistics of a certain travelers’ oasis on St. Helens Avenue are as follows:  105 sleeping rooms, banquet space for 400 people and a work force that swells at times to 95.  And the boss is a no-nonsense executive, who hires and fires, endeavors to keep ahead of the competition, orders the food and liquor and looks like a million in a mini dress.

The boss --- the resident manager ---of the Tacoma Motor Hoel --- is a Marvel….. 5-foot-2, gray-eyed, brown-haired Marvel Beell who went to work there nine years ago as a cocktail waitress.

In the second-floor office, previously occupied by a man, she relaxed in a swivel chair … and admitted that she had never expected to be running the whole show.  “I was the assistant manager for 2 ½ years,” marvel said, “and I thought that was as far as a woman could go.”

She was promoted in May to the No.1 job,

Marvel. 33 is a high school dropout, divorced, and mother of a 12 year old girl and attractive enough to be a model,  In fact, she once modeled teen age wear for a Portland store,  She quit school in your sophomore year to work. 

PRACTICES SELF-INPROVEMENT

And her first job, a graveyard shift was rather unusual, she sat in a downtown office and played the musical records that people in the restaurants and bars requested thorough a microphone hookup In the juke boxes.  Marvel had enough time left over to teach herself typing and shorthand, 

She has also worked as an elevator operator, meat-wrapper, factory technician (assembling military radar equipment), waitress and bartender. 

Marvel remembers the exact date she began serving drinks at the Tacoma motor Hotel… Jan 19, 1961, the year after it opened.  That was the start of her climb to the top.  By 1962 she was working at the reservations desk. “I guess I had a persistence and a push, “ she said “plus a daughter to provide for “  The young woman made herself a valuable employe… b taking night school courses in accounting at Clover Park.

She still handles some for the hotels accounting and strives to keep down the costs of labor, food and liquor.  “I know every nook and cranny of this place and it makes my job easier.” Marvel said.  During a strike last year, she made beds and cleaned toilets. 

Marvel’s capacity for hard work is shared by her sisters: One is in  the travel bureau business, another operates a computer and a third has a job as a grocery checker.  One set of grand parents emigrated from Germany, the other from Russia.

QUESTION AND ANSWER

I asked her to recall the nicest compliment and she received in her new position.  And she paused in the act of lighting a cigarette, raised her eye-bows and thought – and thought.  Her answer:  “I guess it was when my daughter (Darcey) hugged and kissed me and said. “Mommy, I’m so proud of you .”

The resident manager was composed and confident and made a fetching picture in her blue and red mini dress.  

After retirement she enjoyed bingo, playing cards and most of all her family.

Marvel is survived by her daughter, Darcey McBride (Jeff); grand-daughter, Alisha Bethke (John) great-grandson Payton Glassman.  She also leaves behind her sister Donna Dippolito, Joann Schumacher, Margie Fairbanks and sister-in-law Jan Menge

There will not be a service. maybe later a memorial