Marion White Vassilakos' Obituary
Marion White Vassilakos
September 1929 – July 2025
Marion White Vassilakos was born in Chicago to Sidney White and Vera Von Neumann White. Sidney was a native of England. Vera was a Baltic German from Latvia.
Marion's father was a print setter at a Chicago newspaper. When the newspaper workers went on strike, she left high school and took a job. One of her teachers convinced her to return to school. She won a full scholarship to Northern Illinois University in DeKalb where she studied English. After graduating, she taught high school and took a research job with Encyclopedia Britannica. At that time, Encyclopedia Britannica gave customers a guarantee that if they could not find the answers they were seeking in the encyclopedia, they could send their question to Encyclopedia Britannica and one of the company’s librarians would go to a library that had a deep collection in the appropriate subject area, research the question, and mail the answer to the customer. Marion was one of Encyclopedia Britannica’s researchers, providing information “beyond the encyclopedia.” While visiting a friend in Tacoma, she fell in love with the Pacific Northwest. Encyclopedia Britannica agreed that she would work from Seattle where there were excellent research collections on forestry and fisheries. While there she pursued a graduate degree in librarianship from the University of Washington.
In Seattle, Marion joined the Mountaineers and spent her free time hiking the Cascades. She was very proud of her ice axe and her three-digit REI membership number. Throughout her life, she kept the axe under her bed to fend off intruders.
While working in the library of a Boeing subcontractor, a young electrical engineer from Greece approached Marion at the reference desk. She mentioned to him that a Greek movie was playing at a local theater. She always maintained that she told him about the movie because she hoped it would make him feel closer to home. Assuming she was giving him a hint, he blushed and left but then came back with flowers and asked her if she would go with him to see it. Two months later, she and Dimitri Vassilakos were married.
A year later, they had a daughter, Jill, and two years after that they had a son, Greg. Dimitri took a job with TRW and moved the family to San Bernardino. A few years after their move, their bonus baby, Jim, arrived.
Marion was not meant to be a stay at home mom. She took a part-time job with the San Bernardino Public Library. This eventually transitioned into a full-time job, and she subsequently rose to the office of Assistant City Librarian.
Marion had been first-chair clarinet in the high school band. In later life she would say that playing in an orchestra gave her a deeper understanding and appreciation of music. Marion and Dimitri shared a love of music and travel. Family vacations were often in the mountains; both of them loved to hike and ski. Once they retired, they traveled all over the world.
Marion was active in many civic organizations, including the League of Women Voters, the American Association of University Women, and Toastmasters.
Marion was predeceased by her husband, Dimitri. She is survived by her children, Jill, Greg (Christine), and Jim (Shuotai), and by her grandchildren, Paul (Ashlen), Matthew (Barbara), and Sophia, and her great grandchildren, Eleni and Dimitra. The family would like to offer special thanks to Mary Ann, Cathy, Stevi, Seth, Lisa, Intan, and Nancy for the care they gave Marion during her last years.
A memorial service for Marion Vassilakos will be held at Bobbitt Memorial (1299 E. Highland, Ave., San Bernardino CA 92404) at 2:30pm on August 17. Those who wish to remember Marion are encouraged to make a donation to the San Bernardino City Library Foundation.
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