Marian E. Sluhan

Marian (Elliott) Sluhan, co-founder of Master Chemical Corporation in Perrysburg, passed away on her hundredth birthday Tuesday, October 4th. Mrs. Sluhan had not intended to become a businesswoman. The daughter of a Scottish immigrant who served as a career officer in the US Army and a down-to-earth Georgia farm woman, Marian grew-up on Army posts across America. Although she received a full scholarship to Macon Wesleyan for Women during the Depression she decided attending was still too much of a financial burden for her family, and left college to study voice. She sang in the chorus of the Atlanta Opera, but met her future husband, chemist Clyde A. Sluhan (who’d been raised in The Lutheran Orphans Home in East Toledo) when singing in her church. They married ten months later and moved next to Connecticut when he took a position with American Cyanamid in New York City. While she was raising three children (Elliott, Bill and Sally), Clyde invented one of the world’s first chemical cutting and grinding fluids in the pantry of their rented farmhouse and subsequently started Master Chemical Corporation, moving the family to Toledo. Marian became the secretary/office manager/designer-of-facilities in their start-up ma-and-pa business, the way many wives do. And yet, as the company grew and the number of associates multiplied, it became apparent that she had a real talent for organization and administration, as well as a natural instinct for working with human resource and personnel issues. She also came-up with marketing concepts that have served the company well. Even so, she dedicated herself for many years to teaching Sunday school and working with their church’s youth group. She’d been influenced by the writings of C.S. Lewis and wanted to encourage others to read his books. She was always enthusiastic about her children’s pursuits too, and knew how to be encouraging without interfering. She had many interests of her own - theology, architecture, history, politics, design of all sorts. She was involved for several years in Zonta International, an organization for executive women that encouraged and helped support education for disadvantaged girls. She was a book person who read to her kids when they were young, thereby influencing them to become serious readers as adults. Her husband was a man of intense enthusiasms and interests too, though dinner table conversation typically revolved around the most recent crisis at the business, as well as religion and politics. They supported a long list of Christian and conservative undertakings, once the business got past the hand-to-mouth stage, including Campus Crusade for Christ, Jews For Jesus, Hillsdale college and Junior Achievement. Clyde was one of the founders of The Heritage Foundation. They traveled widely in their later years and included their grandchildren when they could. They particularly loved England and Scotland and spent quite a bit of time in Oxford studying more about C.S. Lewis. They lived next door to two of their grandchildren, but doted on all six - John and Sara Sluhan, son and daughter of Elliott Sluhan (now deceased) and Maryann Benes Sluhan; Diana and Anne Sluhan, daughters of William A. Sluhan, now husband of Carol Bartell Sluhan; Jessye and Aaron Wright, daughter and son of Sally Sluhan Wright and her husband, Joe Wright. Marian loved her great-grandsons too, Daniel and Stephen Baer, Sara and David Baer’s sons. Above all, Marian Sluhan made time to have real conversations with people. You felt as though you were important to her and she really wanted to talk with you -because she actually did. She didn’t seem pressed for time, as she smiled and listened, even though she spent most of her life rushing flat-out to keep up with Clyde who was really high energy and completely driven to accomplish whatever he was doing. She was wise, and kind, and she laughed a lot, and yet the family knew when her lower jaw went off to the left, that all the things she’d overlooked all year were about to come home to roost. You apologized and looked abject, because if you didn’t have it coming now, you had all the other times she’d let it slide. Yet it was easy for her to say the four most important and difficult sentences in the English language: I’m sorry. I was wrong. I need help. I don’t know. For Marian Elliott Sluhan practiced what she would’ve preached if she hadn’t been too shy to stand-up and speak in public. Friends will be received from 4-7 P.M. on Friday in the Witzler-Shank Funeral Home, 222 E. South Boundary St., Perrysburg, OH (419-874-3133) where funeral services will be held at 10:30 A.M. on Saturday, October 8, 2011, with Pastor Chad Heubner officiating. Burial will be in Fort Meigs Cemetery. Memorials may be made in the form of contributions to Compassion International, Campus Crusade for Christ, or to a charity of the donor’s choice.