Mariana Lee B-J-53-4

Mariana (Wright) Lee passed away Sunday at Four Season’s Nursing Home in Columbus. She was 101. She was born to Fenton and Kate (Compton) Wright on a farm that is now part of Camp Atterbury on the Mauxferry Road.

She attended a two-room country school until 4th grade when it was incorporated into the Edinburgh School District. She graduated Edinburgh High School in 1937. When her family’s farm was taken for the military camp they moved south of Edinburgh.

As Camp Atterbury was being constructed, Mariana worked in an employment office that hired the construction workers who built the camp. During WWII she worked at Atterbury in the Post Ordinance Office keeping track of guns and ammunition. After the war, she worked in Indianapolis as a recorder at Fort Harrison Hospital. Later she worked in the office of Amos Molded Plastics in Edinburgh.

In 1950, she married Carroll Lee and began her life as a homemaker and mother.

Mariana’s Catholic faith was an essential part of her life and Holy Trinity Church in Edinburgh was its epicenter. She often said that every important event in her life took place at the church. She was a member of the Alter Society and other local clubs including the Rural Social Club, the Creek Club, and the Nineveh Senior Center. She and Carroll were long time volunteers at Columbus Regional Hospital.

Mariana was a survivor. In 2008, she suffered a heart attack and was a patient in the Columbus hospital at the time of the great flood. She was evacuated by school bus to the gymnasium floor of Columbus East High School and later to Bedford Hospital when the school began to flood. In 2015, she broke a hip and became a resident of Four Seasons where she embraced her new life with optimism and good cheer.

She began making plastic canvas and yarn ornaments to give to friends and visitors, church groups and clubs. In 4 years, she made over 7,000. In May, she contracted Covid-19 and miraculously survived but the virus left her bedridden and weakened and her health slowly declined.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Carroll, and her brother W. Wayne.

She is survived by her four children, John Lee of Edinburgh, Catherine Clift of Avon, Mary Sue McConnell (Steve) of Carmel and David Lee (Karin) of Seymour, 5 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren.

The family would like to thank the staff of Four Seasons for their loving care and kindness of Mariana for the last 4 1/2 years. She thrived at the facility and thoroughly enjoyed the staff and the steady stream of people who came to visit. A private family service is planned.

Arrangements made by Eskew-Eaton Funeral Home in Edinburgh, Indiana.