Mary Marshall, 34: Raleigh shooting victim was a veteran who taught others to be brave
It was the kind of morning Mary Marshall would have loved. Chilly and quiet. The perfect wedding day for someone who, like her, loved autumn most.
Rob Steele was supposed to be in the mountains Saturday marrying the woman he says made him a better man. Instead, he was in Dix Park as taps from a Navy honor guard mingled with the rustling of falling leaves. The rustic lanterns, garland and dozens of miniature pumpkins they planned to use for the wedding ceremony now adorned a stage at her memorial, where friends and family gathered to honor a life cut short but well spent.
“For the rest of my life I intend to live up to her having chosen me. I didn’t think I deserved her. Still don’t think I deserved her,” Steele told the crowd assembled on the lawn at Harvey Hill. “But for the two and a half years that I had her, it was the best two and a half years of my life. And I will never forget her.”
Mary Elizabeth Marshall, 34, was one of five people who died Oct. 13 when a young gunman opened fire in the Hedingham neighborhood where she lived with her fiance.
She was born Oct. 24, 1987, in Pensacola, Fla., the second of two daughters of Tom and Ginny Marshall, baby sister to Meaghan. While she was in elementary school, her family moved to Clayton, N.C.
Marshall graduated from Clayton High School. In 2008, she joined the U.S. Navy, telling her family she wanted to travel and then go to college.
Meaghan McCrickard remembers the day her younger sister told her she enlisted — with little discussion and no hesitation.
“That was when she went from my little annoying sister to someone I could look up to,” McCrickard told the crowd at the memorial.
After boot camp, she was assigned to Naval Air Station Lemoore in California, home of Strike Fighter Squadron 192, an F/A-18E Super Hornet squadron known as the “World Famous Golden Dragons.”
Marshall trained as an aviation structural mechanic with the squadron. During her three years in the Navy, her sister said, Marshall was assigned to an aircraft carrier stationed in Japan, and traveled around Southeast Asia during her tour there.
She left the Navy in the summer of 2011 with a National Defense Service Medal, a Navy “E” Ribbon, a Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and a Sea Service Deployment Medal.
She returned to North Carolina and enrolled in Wake Technical Community College’s culinary arts program, graduating in 2014, with a dream of eventually opening her own bakery.
She moved to Orlando, Fla., where her step-grandmother lives, and worked for a couple of years at a Starbucks and doing clerical work in a dentist’s office. Donna Marshall said her step-granddaughter was crazy about Disney World and loved going to the beach.
Marshall moved back to North Carolina three years ago.
She met Steele online during the COVID-19 lockdown, and the two courted virtually until it was deemed safe to meet in person. When they did, family members said, they knew they wanted to spend their lives together.
“She taught me, amongst many things, that being in touch with my emotions and learning about them did not make me a weaker man — it made me a better man,” Steele said. “I learned from her every day.”
They planned a mountain wedding at a rustic open-air chapel in Waynesville, N.C., and rented cabins on the property with plans to decorate them for guests. In an online wedding registry, they told loved ones they didn’t need to add to their houseful of belongings, but invited those who wanted to give them wedding presents to donate to the cost of the honeymoon/first anniversary trip they had planned to Salem, Mass.
Though Steele said Marshall often told him he was her “favorite place,” she was excited about the trip. They planned to drive up in October — peak spooky season, they said — and see all the touristy things: The Witch House, Wynott’s Wands, the International Monster Museum.
“Mary will bust Rob’s chops while he golfs,” they wrote on the registry. “We will generally enjoy the witchy capital of the US during the best time of the year!”
Marshall loved trying new restaurants, they wrote, and Steele loves food, so they looked forward to exploring.
Marshall worked at Triangle Chiropractic and Rehabilitation Center in Raleigh, where she was promoted earlier this year to back-of-office manager. Dr. Lindsay Mumma, founder of the practice, wrote in a note to patients that she realized later that the acronym for Marshall’s position, BOM, aptly described Marshall and that’s how Mumma and her office mates began to refer to her.
“I do not know our way forward, and I know that we will stumble in our messy and beautiful grief for this incredible feisty and powerful person that we are missing so painfully right now,” Mumma wrote after Marshall’s death. “I thank you for your patience as we navigate what it looks like to run an office without the BOM of the office.”
At the memorial, friends and family from all parts of her life — grade school, the Navy, culinary classes — remembered Marshall as a force. They spoke of her bravery, her integrity, her mastery of “cussing like a sailor” and her infectious “cackle” — all of which inspired love and loyalty from those she was close to.
“If you were Mary’s people, you were her people, and she was fierce and protective,” Mumma said.
Speakers encouraged each other to draw lessons from Marshall’s life, the way she took steps toward happiness again and again until she found it.
“I think for me, I’m going to take her braveness and her love for life and I’m going to live happy and bold and loud and full of laughter and love,” McCrickard said, fighting back tears.
Dr. Mackenzie Smith, who worked at the medical practice with Marshall, was due to officiate the wedding this weekend. But before Marshall’s friends and family Saturday, she called on the gathering to be brave and honest in her friend’s memory — just as Marshall had taught them.
“Mary was and still is a beacon of light all around us,” Smith said. “Don’t let Mary down.”
Remembering the victims
Click a name below to read more from the funerals honoring the victims of the Oct. 13, 2022, mass shooting in Raleigh's Hedingham community. This list will update as new services take place.
