The oldest of seven children in an Irish Catholic family, Marian entered the convent of the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood when she was sixteen. She graduated from Fontbonne College with a degree in English, and taught in several schools in St. Louis before volunteering to go to Lima, Peru, to work with the Sisters and Maryknoll priests in Lima. After eleven years in the convent, she left the community and became a bilingual teacher in Massachusetts. She met and married Michael Wernicke from Pensacola, Florida, and they spent over a year in Madrid where Michael was working as a design review electrical engineer. Marian taught students from St. Louis University who were spending a study year abroad in Madrid. . They spent the next 39 years in Pensacola raising three children, Kristin, Tim, and John. Marian was a professor at Pensacola Junior College for 25 years, teaching writing and literature, and serving six years as English department head. Since her retirement from the college, Marian has written three books: a memoir about her father called Tom O'Shea: A Twentieth Century Man; a novel called Toward that Which Is Beautiful, published by She Writes Press in 2020; and her latest novel, Out of Ireland will be published in April 2023. It is inspired by the life of her great-grandmother from Ireland. She and her husband are living now in Austin, near their daughter Kristin, who is married to Max Benitez, and they have a son, August Michael. Son Tim is married to Sarah Jasinski and they live and work in San Diego. Son John lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.