The holidays were a particularly busy time for Marilyn S. Guild, whose home would be filled with hundreds of wreaths she made for the annual Christmas bazaar for Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield.
The decorative wreaths, made of barbed wire and dried flowers, were a popular seller at the bazaar, which helped raise thousands of dollars for the hospital, family members said.
“There’d be wreaths stacked everywhere in our house,” recalled her daughter, Susan Sweetra. “Only my mother could create something so beautiful from rusty old barbed wire.”
Mrs. Guild, 75, of Wheaton, a member of the Central DuPage Hospital Auxiliary and longtime community volunteer, died Monday, Aug. 16, in Central DuPage Hospital after a yearlong battle with cancer.
Mrs. Guild was born in Geneva and raised in Glen Ellyn, where she graduated from Glenbard High School. Her father was the owner and operator of M.C. Stephens Lumber Co. in the town’s center.
For the last 20 years, Mrs. Guild was a volunteer with the Central DuPage Hospital Auxiliary, serving as president with the Wheaton Unit in the early 1980s and later as chairwoman of the ways and means committee and treasurer. She served as the Fall Benefit chairwoman during the 1990s, helping raise thousands of dollars for the hospital, and more recently as treasurer of the hospital’s Coffee Corner, a volunteer-operated snack shop from which proceeds are given to the hospital.
“Marilyn was very organized and detail-oriented, the perfect person to put in charge of bookkeeping,” said Nancy Shorney, a longtime friend and fellow volunteer. “It’s amazing in this day and age of computers, because she always did everything by hand.”
For many years Mrs. Guild was a member of the Wheaton chapter of the P.E.O. Sisterhood, a philanthropic organization, and the Wheaton Garden Club. She also was a former president of the House and Garden Club of Wheaton and a volunteer for the Wheaton Drama Club.
“Outside of her family, she loved to devote her time and talent to the community,” said her son, John. “She did it happily and willingly, and all from her heart.”
Mrs. Guild also is survived by two grandsons.
Services will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday at First Presbyterian Church of Wheaton, 715 N. Carlton Ave.
