Former box-car jumper Stan Brown, known as “the Marble Man,” died in a November traffic accident. The owner of a marble shop in downtown Astoria, Brown, a former sports umpire and fisherman, was a local fixture of sorts. He manned booths at Astoria’s Sunday Market and at the Saturday Market in Ilwaco, Wash. But sales weren’t his priority. Whether at his store, at a market or walking along a downtown sidewalk, he insisted on handing out “lucky marbles” to everyone.

The following story ran in November after Stan Brown’s death

By KARA HANSEN

The Daily Astorian

A 64-year-old Astoria man known to many as the “Marble Guy” died in November when his pickup slipped off an icy Washington road and plummeted into a ditch, settling upside down in several feet of water.

Stanley M. “Stan” Brown was headed south on the Astoria-Naselle bypass with his fiancée, Roshelle Jones, 41, of Longview, Wash., when he lost control of his vehicle near Bean Creek.

He was pronounced dead at the scene. Family members said Jones remained in a hospital Monday after suffering hip and neck injuries.

The owner of a marble shop in downtown Astoria, Brown had become a local fixture of sorts since moving to the area several years ago. He manned booths at Astoria’s Sunday Market and at the Saturday Market in Ilwaco, Wash. He even appeared in the locally filmed “Ring II” during a market scene.

But sales weren’t Brown’s priority, family members said. Whether at his store, at a market or walking along a downtown sidewalk, he insisted on handing out “lucky marbles” to anyone he passed. Brown’s pockets rattled with the tiny glass spheres, and his store was filled with them, some also made of clay, metal, resin, rubber and wood.

His grandson Stuart, 16, of Naselle, said Brown likely gave away more marbles than he sold.

“He wanted to give away a million lucky marbles before he went,” the teenager said. “I think he oversucceeded.”

The “lucky marbles” offered Brown a chance “to show kindness and to give people luck, to get them back into marbles,” said Stuart Brown. He often helped teach people to play marbles at his grandfather’s booths, but the two also enjoyed road trips together through Washington and “adventures” in the forest, where they would watch birds, examine insects and discuss astronomy.

Stan Brown also liked to fish and was an umpire for many years. But life wasn’t always so happy-go-lucky for the marble enthusiast.

Family members said Brown, a native of San Francisco, was a rowdy youth, earning the nickname “The Jumper” after a bar brawl or two in Fresno, Calif. He satisfied some of his early wanderlust by hitchhiking and by riding the rails – he was a skilled box-car jumper, family said.

Those behaviors bowed toward free love as he grew into adulthood. Brown eventually went through two marriages, raising a daughter, two sons, two stepsons and a stepdaughter. He started refinishing antique furniture before moving to Spokane, Wash., where he opened a moving business. But some of his younger years’ unhealthy habits lingered.

Overcoming heavy drinking gave Brown a lot of pride, said his stepfather, Max Jones.

“He had a complete change of life when he quit drinking,” Jones said. “It worked for him, and he’d tell other people about it, too. He liked to tell people, ‘That’s what you’ve got to do.'”

Camille Brown, a registered nurse in Naselle and the eldest of his three children, agreed her father was a strong advocate of 12-step programs. But he helped many people throughout his life, she added.

“He’d offer food to the homeless,” she said. “My dad never passed judgment on a single soul. He saw the love in everybody that passed his life.”

After conquering his drinking problem, Brown, then in his 40s, attended community college in Seattle, where he studied environmental science. It was there he also rekindled an interest in marbles, teaching younger students about the game while selling tiny glass globes painted with Earths.

Those embellished orbs were among his most treasured. Using a technique that he attributed to Doug Anderson, some of his favorite painted and screen-printed marbles sit in the back of his shop, a miniature marble museum, which he opened when he moved to Astoria.

Joyce Compere, manager of Astoria Sunday Market, said Brown was also a strong supporter of local youths.

“Stan was remarkable with young people in this community,” said Compere. “Young people who didn’t fit in – he made a place for them; he put out his hand and didn’t lose patience with them. He employed them, giving them job skills, social skills.”

She said she hired two young men through Brown for odd jobs. And she laughed recounting his initial proposal for a market booth, which she said took her off-guard.

“I said, ‘Stan, I don’t think marbles are a 21st-century product.’ He said, ‘No, just give me a chance and we’ll have fun with this. We’ll get kids involved,'” Compere explained. “And he did.”

She said plenty of lucky marbles scattered throughout her drawers will help to remember Brown.

“He was quirky, and funny, loving and concerned about the Earth and the people on it,” Compere said. “I will miss him terribly.”

Brown often visited family in Spokane, in Rosburg, Wash., and in Naselle. He was headed back to Astoria from one of those gatherings when his truck crashed just after Thanksgiving.

When family members ventured out to the site about two miles from their home to place flowers in his memory, they found that Brown had left behind some of his familiar possessions.

In the ditch near Bean Creek where the 64-year-old perished, his grandson spotted a sack filled with little balls of glass.

“I found some of his marbles,” Stuart Brown said.