Reported by a friend that Marion Cunnningham, editor of the Fannie Farmer Cookbooks and her own personal books is dying in a nursing home in Bay Area

It is with great sadness that a friend called me here in Villa del Angel , my house on the beach north of Acapulco on the road to Ixtapa on the Pacific coast of Mexic to tell me that Marion Cunningham, my great friend of 27 years is dying in a nursing home in the Bay Area of California. She is 87 years old. I think she was born on February 7, 1922 in Los Angeles. She has been in a nursing home or an assisted living enviornment for the past few years. Isolated from her friends and the public. Her family took her away from the world "for her betterment". Few of us agree in this logic. She is reported to be a Hospice Patient and expected to live only a short time.

We have been through everything together. The great, good times and the really horrible awful times. But our friendship survived. I would say that our friendship will survive her death. She meant everything to me. As she did to many, many people. The public Marion Cunningham was the same person you saw as a friend. She had a quality that very few people have. She was very interested in YOU. I use the past tense not because she has died; but because she went away. Into the world of Alzheimers and dementia. Lost about five years ago. Her family not allowing anyone to see her nor talk to her. The worst thing that can happen to a person who is fading away. But we all retreated. Including me. We all gave up. Except for maybe one friend of hers that will go un-named. The one that stayed behind with her.