While enrolled at the University of Nebraska Marian was hired by the wives of four Omaha otologists to start a school for the deaf, and under the guidance of the four otologists, she established the Omaha Hearing School in 1952 for preschool deaf and hard of hearing children and their parents to provide early education and training during the most formative years of a child’s life. The school subsequently operated for almost 60 years, closing in 2011 due to lack of patients as technology had changed. Marian was certified as a Speech Language Pathologist SLP/A in 1952 and obtained ASHA (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association) certification of clinical competence in speech, language pathology and audiology (CCC-SPL) in 1954.

Blending marriage, family, and professional life:

On July 30, 1954, Marian received her master’s degree in the Nebraska Coliseum in Lincoln Nebraska. The very next day, on July 31, 1954, she married her husband John W. (Jack) Ernst in Akron Iowa. Soon after they were married they moved to Milwaukee where Marian worked as a speech correctionist in the Milwaukee Public Schools.

The couple moved to Denver in 1955 where Marian worked as a speech correctionist with school age children for the University of Denver speech program. Later in the decade this program would be known as Denver’s Acoupedic Program. In 1960 the now family of four moved to South Dakota where Marian worked with the Rapid City Public Schools. After returning to Denver in 1962, now a family of five, she worked for Denver Public Schools for a couple of years before resuming work with the Acoupedic Program, now at Porter Memorial Hospital, as a speech language pathologist.

In 1979 Marian established the Educational Audiology Program in Denver where she was in private practice as a speech-language hearing clinician and auditory-verbal therapist as well as the director and researcher in auditory-verbal learning and education throughout the rest of her career.

Professional organizations, certification, and honors:

In the 1970s Marian was one of the organizers of the certification program for auditory verbal therapists for AG Bell. She chaired the Auditory-Verbal International (AVI) Certification Council that helped established a certification program for professionals engaged in auditory learning programs for deaf and hard-of-hearing children and was one of the first in Colorado to achieve the Cert. AVT certification in 1994.

She served on Boards at Auditory-Verbal International, Inc. (AVI) (now A.G. Bell Academy for Listening and Spoken Language), and at the Listen Foundation in Denver, where she also worked as a Listen Foundation therapist. She had Lifetime Memberships in the A.G. Bell Colorado chapter, and in ASHA and CASHA (Colorado Audiology-Speech-Hearing Association). She received Listen Foundation recognition in 2009 at its 40th anniversary.

Travel:

Marian enjoyed travel and visited Japan, Russia, Turkey, Mexico, Canada, New Zealand, eastern and western Europe, Argentina, and all 50 states, often when possible exchanging information and knowledge with other professionals in those locations working in her field. In 1993 she went as a member of an Education of the Hearing-Impaired Delegation to Moscow, Stavrapol, and St. Petersburg, Russia through the Citizen Ambassador Program. When her children were young, Marian enjoyed eventful family camping trips throughout the country with Jack, the kids, and Rags the dog in their tent trailer.

Church:

Marian and Jack were among the founding members of the First Universalist Church on Hampden in Denver Colorado in 1956, with Jack on the building committee that designed the original structure. The family participated in many UU activities over the years including camping, cross country skiing, and for Marian, her favorite: the Opsimaths book group, of which she was the last surviving member.

She is predeceased by her husband of 60 years, Jack Ernst (1928-2015) and two siblings, Fred (1929-2008) and Eula (1933-2018). She is survived by three children, two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.