Marianna Bolley Sadowski

What have I been up to since 1960? Yikes! That's SIXTY YEARS! Ha! Went to Toledo Hospital School of Nursing, worked as an RN for a total of maybe 13 years....stay at home mom for a number of years while daughters were young. Married Randy Sadowski, from Swanton, Ohio, and we were married 27 years before divorcing in 1992.
Have lived in Lafayette a total of 51 years, 47 in the same house (just recently moved to Columbus, Indiana). Am retired, keep busy with family (3 grandchildren in Columbus, Indiana and 1 in La Crescent, Minnesota), friends, church family, and some volunteer "work". :o)
Haven't been in Defiance for several years....my mom died in 1998, but I HAVE stayed overnight a few times to take grandkids to Sauder Village. I keep up with Defiance via the Crescent News online.

Now it is 2024, and I DID get to Defiance twice in 2017....one event was a surprise 75th birthday party/sleepover for Sue Parker Hoellrich, orchestrated by her daughter Jenni. THAT was a hoot!
Susie Bleeks, Karen Weaner, Connie Morris and Elaine Shoup (whose dad was our pastor at St. Paul's until about 4th grade and then they moved to Oak Harbor) were also there and we had a great time!


Defiance has changed and not changed.....I always enjoy driving around and trying to remember who lived where and what used to be where something else is today. ha!


Since I originally filled out this profile, we've had two class get-togethers: the 2010 reunion and the 2012 birthday party. I've been able to get re-acquainted with a couple friends from high school and that is happy. Funny how the older I get, the more important it seems to be grounded in my early years in Defiance......a sort of "remember where you came from", I guess. I've also gotten acquainted with a couple DHS alums who were not in my class, but younger, and who have stayed in Defiance all these years and can fill in many of the "blanks". And as each year goes by, I'm more and more grateful to feel more in touch with Defiance than I have been for a long time. Thanks for keeping this website up and current!

In July, 2023, I moved to a retirement community in Columbus, Indiana, (where my oldest daughter and family live) and out of my home in Lafayette where I had lived for 47 years! There was a lot of stuff to sort through!! My middle granddaughter and her husband bought the house and are renovating/repairing things to make it their own. I am enjoying assisted living life a whole lot more than I anticipated!! I still think I am way too young to be living here....until I realize that I fit right in with my walker and total willingness to eat dinner at 4:30 pm. It's a sweet life!!

LOTS of funny memories....but recently was thinking about our senior year when Jean Agler and Pat Cunningham and I were allowed to leave school 8th period and drive around town collecting sales tax stamps! Pat had a little bitty Vespa and one afternoon drove it right up the sidewalk to my front step....we thought we were terribly funny and mom thought so too!

I remember driving all over the place to empty big jars that sat on counters in various businesses downtown .......then we would have to spend time sorting and bundling the stamps to send them somewhere to get money back. It was a class project and I don't know if every senior class did it for awhile, or if it was just ours. I remember that Connie Morris, Sue Parker, Karen Weaner also helped, at least with the counting.

I also remember cruising up and down Clinton Street on Saturday nights (or any other night, I guess).....and the loop went around that little triangle park at Clinton and Arabella streets. I don't remember where we turned around at the north end.....but we drove for hours sometimes, I think.

My grandchildren really can't comprehend our school newspaper production....remember mimeograph machines, that darn ink that got on everything, and typewriters and stencils? EEK! Then we stapled the things together....oh my.
We had a lot of fun in the Banner office.

I also remember dances after football games, downstairs in the cafeteria......we would go in down a little outside stairway....OH...and I remember the first Skylark Club...upstairs above a store front at the north end of Clinton Street, close to the bridge. It was THE place to be on a Saturday night. ha!

And lastly, I remember when we left on our senior trip to Washington D.C. and New York City......(I THINK we went to NYC.....I don't remember anything specific about anything other than Washington..), and we left from the old depot! It was a really big deal!