Author: Brid Nowlan

Photographer: Doug Plummer

About the project

Exhibit Schedule

WA State Old Time Fiddlers Association Home Page

Doug Plummer's Archives

Doug Plummer's website

As a seventeen-year-old bride, she traveled out west, following the crops and settled in Lakewood, Washington. She worked for the school district there for many years and, when she retired, a neighbor made her a present of his father’s fiddle. Marilyn took her new fiddle to a meeting of the old time fiddlers association. After the meeting she "just went nuts with the radio." She would listen all day long, trying to play along with the music. "Everything else went—house, dishes, food—everything else went out the window." She learned from other local fiddlers. Caroll Gaskins would "get down on one knee in front of me and he’d say, ‘have you learned to count to three?’" And he would mark out the time for her. Jim Calvert played tunes slowly into her "tune sucker" (i.e. tape recorder) and played back-up guitar for her at performances.

Marilyn’s warm, spirited fiddling is a favorite at local shows and events. She says: "Wherever you are, you look out across at your audience and you play for them."