Passing: Marlys Burnett, mother, musician, poet, muse

By SUZANNE DOWNING

May 31,2026 –  Marlys Ruth Burnett, 97, passed peacefully in Poulsbo, Washington on May 30, 2026, after a long and vibrant life marked by music, faith, adventure, teaching, and devotion to family and community.

She was born Sept. 15, 1929, in Osakis, Minnesota, to the Rev. Robert and Doris Prentice under dramatic circumstances that became family legend.

On that Sunday morning, while her father was delivering a sermon at the local church, the town’s mail carrier burst through the sanctuary doors and shouted, “Doc says if you wanna see your wife alive, better come now!” Doris Prentice was in the hospital giving birth, and her heart had stopped during labor. Miraculously, both mother and daughter survived.

In her early years, her family lived in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, before moving in 1937 to Bend, Oregon, where Marlys grew up. Marlys began her life avocation of music early. She began playing piano as a child and continued nearly her entire life, still playing only weeks before her passing.

Marlys attended Lewis & Clark College in Portland, beginning college at just 17 years old. During those years she supported herself doing stenography work, a skill she had begun practicing professionally at age 16 with the Montana Board of Health. At Lewis & Clark she met Robert Burnett, whom she later married. Together they raised four children: Rebecca, Suzanne, Peter, and Joseph. She later finished her undergraduate degree in music at Long Beach State University.

The family followed Robert Burnett’s journalism work throughout Southern California, living in the greater Los Angeles and San Diego areas before relocating to Juneau, Alaska, in late 1969. They settled on Fritz Cove Road, where their sailboat anchored offshore reflected the adventurous spirit that shaped much of family life.

Marlys built a remarkably varied and accomplished career over the decades. In addition to raising four children, she worked for the Oregon Society of Crippled Children, and a US senator from Oregon. She taught music in the Los Angeles Public Schools from 1957 to 1960 and maintained a lifelong piano teaching practice beginning in 1960.

In Juneau, she worked as a substitute teacher and music teacher in the Juneau School District, an account representative for KJNO radio, secretary at Alaska Airlines, secretary to the House Finance Committee in the Alaska Legislature, and in administrative roles with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, the Department of the Interior, and the National Park Service, where she also served as an information ranger.

She and Robert Burnett also founded Inside Passage, a tourism publication widely distributed throughout Southeast Alaska in the late 70s and early 80s.

After the couple’s divorce in 1979, she later married Joe Ashby of Sitka. She lived for a time in Sitka and worked at Sheldon Jackson College before returning to San Diego to complete a master’s degree in piano pedagogy.

In the 1990s, Marlys moved to Bainbridge Island, Washington, where she continued teaching piano for decades. Her teaching career finally came to an end in 2020 during the Covid pandemic, closing a chapter that had shaped much of her life and touched generations of students. The students simply stopped their lessons that year due to the pandemic.

Marlys loved the outdoors as deeply as she loved music. She hiked, kayaked, gardened, and found joy in growing her own food, whether in Juneau or on Bainbridge Island. Her adventures included a multi-day kayaking journey through Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve with her daughter Suzanne, rafting the Alsek River in Alaska, and countless hikes through Olympic National Forest.

Faith also remained central throughout her life, and she was active in church communities wherever she lived, including Northern Lights Presbyterian Church in Juneau and more recently at Eagle Harbor Congregational Church in Winslow, on Bainbridge Island.

Marlys was also a lifelong writer and poet who filled journals throughout her life with reflections, observations, prayers, poems, and stories from her many adventures. Writing was as natural to her as music, and she often processed the world through both the written word and the piano keyboard. Her journals became a quiet record of nearly a century of living — documenting family life, faith, travel, nature, friendships, joys, and hardships with honesty and grace. Those who knew her well understood that beneath her sometimes eccentric manner was a deeply thoughtful and creative spirit, one that found beauty in everyday moments and expressed it through poetry and music until the very end. Even as recently as this month she was writing in her journal.

For the past two years, Marlys had been cared for at Martha & Mary Health and Rehab Center after suffering a broken hip from a fall. Even in her final years, she remained connected to music, friendship, and family. Having lived nearly 98 years, she outlived most of her contemporaries, but she remained surrounded by devoted friends from Bainbridge Island who continued visiting her after her move to nearby Poulsbo.

She is survived by her children: Rebecca (Richard) Manzo of Miller Bay, Washington; Suzanne Downing (Pat Yack) of Skagway, Alaska; Peter Burnett of Silverdale, Washington; and Joe (Toni) Burnett of Vancouver, Washington. She is also survived by her grandchildren and great grandchildren, as well as many nieces and nephews.

A private family service will be held, with additional details forthcoming. The family expresses its deepest gratitude to the staff of Martha and Mary for their loving and skillful care of Marlys for the past two and a half years.