Obituary of Marjorie C. Dunham

WESTPORT, CONN Marjorie Corliss Dunham, 89, died peacefully in Norwalk Hospital, Connecticut, on the night of January 2, 2026, after a long illness, with family members at her bedside. Born on October 5, 1936, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the daughter of William Kirkland Corliss and Beatrice Keene (Webber) Corliss (who was Gloucester’s first woman Mayor), and known as Jean to her family there, Marge was educated in Gloucester public schools and Mount Holyoke College (B.A. 1958). After graduating, she married Christopher Cooper Dunham and lived in Yonkers, New York, working at Equitable Life Assurance Society in New York City. In 1962 she and her husband moved to Westport, Connecticut. Long active in Westport civic organizations (Visiting Homemakers, Friends of Sherwood Island), she served as Saugatuck School PTA president and as Vice Chairman of the Westport Recreation Commission. A greatly loved and loving wife and mother, she had a weakness for puns, enjoyed foreign travel (Europe, East Africa) and relished physical activity, playing tennis, golf and women’s softball until late in life. She saw the promise of computers earlier than most, working as a computer aide at Bedford Junior High School in the late 1970s, where she introduced students to BASIC programming. When her children entered college, she enrolled in the graduate program of Fairfield University, earning an M.S. in computer science in 1983. Thereafter, she was employed for 18 years as a LAN officer at Peoples Bank in Bridgeport, Connecticut; upon retirement, she spent several years as a library assistant at schools in neighboring towns. She was predeceased by her older sister, Sylvia Corliss King. Survivors, in addition to her husband, include their three children, Douglas Webber Dunham, William Sigler Dunham (Melanie Anne Rogers) and Anne Corliss Dunham; one granddaughter, Courtney Elizabeth Dunham; a brother, William Kirkland Corliss, Jr. (Linda Boothe); a niece, three nephews and several grandnieces and grandnephews. Interment will be private at Willowbrook Cemetery in Westport. A memorial service will be held at Saugatuck Congregational Church, 245 Post Road East, Westport, CT on Saturday, January 10, 2026, at 11:00 AM. Donations in lieu of flowers may be sent to the Mount Holyoke Fund for general scholarship aid or to the American Cancer Society.