Captain Marion Erwin Brown

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Service will be streamed live

Click HERE to view (link will be active day of service)

Captain Marion Erwin Brown (aka Brownie), of Plantation, Florida, passed away on Wednesday, March 22, 2023, after a short illness. A former first lieutenant in the Army Signal Corps and retired captain with Eastern Airlines he is predeceased by his parents, George Erwin Brown and Carolyne Matilda Brown, and survived by June Eileen Dowd Brown, his wife of 65 years, sons Matthew (Erin), and Timothy, grandchildren Brody and Taylor, and numerous nieces and nephews, cousins, and friends.

A memorial service will be held Saturday, May 27, 2023, at 1:00 P.M. at T. M. Ralph Funeral Home, 7001 N.W. 4^th Street, Plantation, Florida. Please visit tmralph.com for more information and to sign the guestbook.

Born February 19, 1934, in Dalton, Georgia, into a family of educators (both his mother and father held master’s degrees in education from Duke University) Marion grew up in Georgia and North Carolina before the family moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for his junior year of high school. His parents hoped the love of educating would be passed down to their only child, but Brownie had his own ideas, which he shared as a senior in an interview with his high school paper in 1952.

“Ever since I've known the meaning of the word ‘airplane’ I've built models, centered all my hobbies around them, and dreamed of the day I could fly.”

That dream came true when he earned a restricted pilot’s license and bought his first plane while still in high school, with money earned working in a peach packing house and as a newsboy in Georgia. After graduation came a regular license, enabling him to carry passengers, and a year at the University of Florida, Gainesville, before transferring to Florida Southern College, in Lakeland. While there, Marion was a member of the school’s ROTC Pistol Team as well as fraternity Pi Kappa Phi before graduating with a BS in Business Administration in June of 1957. It was also there the southern boy met a girl from Brooklyn, named June, the love of his life who would become his wife and wingman.

After graduation Brownie entered the US Army Signal Corps and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant, serving two years before leaving the service to begin pilot training with Delta Airlines, then transitioning to Eastern Airlines and began a career that would span years, until the airline’s destructuring. He and June were married on October 25, 1958, and called South Florida home for most of their long partnership, save a short transfer to Massachusetts. They welcomed sons Matthew Ryan, April 19, 1961, and Timothy Raymond, March 22, 1965, and the family was complete.

Brownie flew the world with Eastern, traversing the globe and living his boyhood dream of a life in the clouds. When not airborne, he was an avid golfer and intelligent investor, researching stocks and business opportunities was a passion. He also enjoyed working on projects around the house…like crafting a wooden canoe or building a single-engine Quickie airplane from a kit in the garage, leather upholstery included, and piloting it to fly-ins around the country, with June as his co-pilot.

When his career with Eastern was over he continued to fly for pleasure, first in the Quickie and then in the Cessna 210 he kept at Fort Lauderdale’s Executive Airport, meeting up for breakfast (and beyond) with a hangar full of aviation cohorts, something he would do even after he could no longer take to the skies himself.

Marion and June were incredibly proud when Matt completed medical school and became Dr. Brown, an anesthesiologist, and overjoyed when he married Erin (Reiter) in October of 2001, that happiness eclipsed only when he was made a grandfather with the births of Brody and Taylor.

June’s stroke in 2018 brought new challenges, which they faced together, and the years that followed were a testimony to their love, partnership, and teamwork. He was the king of the Dad joke, a true Southern gentleman who saw his future in the skies yet stayed grounded in the best possible way. He was so loved and will be equally missed.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) in honor of Marion’s grandson, Brody:

Online Tribute Donation to JDRF

“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”

- Leonardo da Vinci