Santa Fe Living Treasures – Elder Stories

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Marjorie Muth

Marjorie Muth

Honored November, 2004

Marjorie Muth

When their first son, Budge, was born to Marjorie and Henry Muth, they were as thrilled as any other parents. Not until a second son came did they see that there was a sharp difference between the learning capability of the boys. They had Budge tested. The diagnosis: "developmentally disabled."

There were no public educational opportunities for the retarded in the late 1940s, so Marjorie and her husband enrolled Budge in a private school. To pay for it, she did something she had vowed not to do: She became a teacher. "I'll never teach!" she had said upon graduating from Rockford College in Illinois and Kansas University, with a major in English. But her mother had some good advice: "You never know when you'll need to go to work"—so Marjorie also got a minor in education.