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News of Marian Houser’s death set me on an immediate search through tubs of newspaper photos, clippings and memorabilia I had promised myself I would organize and properly scrapbook for posterity when I retired from the Herald-Star as community editor almost three years ago now.
The urgency to reflect and reminisce about my newsroom mother dictated my direction for the rest of that day - Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, the day “mommy-mommy” made her transition from earthly existence to heavenly glory.
Make no mistake, Marian was on my mind along with the realization that I was now officially a newsroom orphan.
I thought about how our relationship took root in late 1979 when I graduated from college and began my career at the newspaper, how I was as green as grass and clueless in a profession I knew next to nothing about.
I had company in that respect as there was a core group of us newbies who would learn together and become long-term employees but, more importantly, brothers and sisters who were part of a newsroom family in all its dysfunctional splendor.
It was under Marian our mother’s tutelage that we learned a trade she had navigated when the 33-year-old mother of five responded to a “reporter needed” ad and began her newspaper career at the Herald-Star in 1968.
She would applaud our progress and dispense instruction and encouragement with equal parts of correction, advice and expectations.
Marian cared not only about the work we did as a newsroom, but about us as individuals. She shared in our personal development as well and saw us through marriage, divorce, deaths, parenting and beyond.
We were a support system for each other through all those years in an environment that fostered genuine laughter despite its often stressful working conditions.
There was nothing fake or forced about Marian’s laugh, I can assure you, given one of my newspaper goofs made it let loose with ferocity time and again.
Taking obituaries was among my early duties, a task where a reporter would take dictation over the phone from area funeral homes, then type them on what amounted to a glorified electric typewriter. The copy was then presented for review and correction to Marian in her capacity as city editor.
One of the first obits I took was from Mosti Funeral Home regarding a Catholic gentleman who had died. I took the info, wrote the obit and turned it in to Marian, who ultimately started to laugh uproariously. Wow, what kind of a person laughs at an obituary, I had wondered at the time.
For me, this was a lesson in what was actually said vs. what I thought I had heard. This was the day I learned that Catholic people have a Mass of Christian Burial, not a Massive Christian Burial. They do sound similar.
Marian had assured me at the time - in between failed attempts to squelch outbursts of laughter - that the burial probably wasn’t going to be all that big, dear child.
It was one of those newsroom moments in history you never live down. Even to this day, a former co-worker might be inclined to snicker and wonder aloud if I’ve been to any massive Christan burials lately.
My “tub travels” through newspaper nostalgia brought no wrong turns, no dead ends, only meant-to-be destinations. I call them “God winks,” not coincidences.
How ironic that one of the first things I came across was the Valley Life story I’d written about Marian when she was just days away from retiring after her more than 40-year newspaper career. It was published Aug. 15, 2010. The headline was “A farewell to Marian,” one that could just as easily apply to what I’m writing here.
The most ironic and timely find, though, was a community page of Marian’s from Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2000. I had kept it because it was such a fitting reminder and example of how gifted a writer Marian was, a skilled wordsmith who could take life’s experiences and make column space come alive with thoughts that generated that me-too connection with her readers, whether they knew her or not.
Marian had used newspaper space to write her way through the grieving process, having suffered great loss in her life, beginning with the death by cancer of her daughter Pam in 1986.
The headline on this particular column was “Playing the game, changing the focus.”
“I played a numbers game after my first-born child died,” Marian began the column, sharing how she went through the motions of day-to-day living, giving the impression that she was getting on with her life. When she was alone, however, it was a different story of a grief she could not emerge from until she had worked through it in her own way, in her own time.
Marian wrote that such grief would make her estimate the number of years she had to live and endure before she herself could die, basing this on the lifespans of others in her family.
“It would be at least 20 years if I died at 72, as each of my in-laws had,” she wrote in this column published 25 years ago. “But if I lived as long as my father, I would be 84. Thirty-one years. When my mother died three years after my daughter - at 86 - I thought, ‘That would be 33 years. I can’t bear 33 years of this!'”
Marian wrote that loss was her only focus, but a turnaround ultimately evolved, an acceptance of sorts. “You never forget your lost loved ones,” she wrote. “The hurt is always there, but the rough edges are gone.” She promised “… you can come out the other side of the forest into the sunlight.”
So the countdown ended.
“I don’t count the days until I can die anymore. These days I’m thinking of the number of days I may get to live. If I ONLY live to 72, I probably won’t get to see very many of my grandchildren’s children. If I ONLY live to 84 or 86, I’ll meet them but I won’t get to share in the milestones of their lives. I’m getting greedy. I realize I still have a role to play, chores to do, places to see, family and friends who just might miss me if I leave right now,” Marian wrote.
“I do smile when I think about my great reunion,” she reflected. “I like to watch the ending of ‘Titanic’ when Rose dies and her spirit drifts through that murky water and those ruined passageways. Then it bursts into the light where Jack and the other victims wait, whole again and smiling. I think of all the people who are waiting for me, how excited they will be.”
To my newsroom mom and friend, I pray you are relishing your reunion.
(Kiaski, a resident of Richmond, is the former community editor of the Herald-Star and The Weirton Daily Times)