Mariana Titus
Mariana Titus passed over the rainbow in her beloved Louisiana on July 17, 2023. The death was unexpected, but she was fortunately joined by her husband, Richard Putnam Baker, and close relatives at the Ochsner Lafayette ICU before passing. He had flown in from their home in Santa Barbara, California.
She is loved by many people, touched by her outgoing, fun-loving creative spirit. Mariana was an author, artist, photographer, teacher, and leader of an online women’s group Shedding Light. In 2019, She received an award from the Governor of Louisiana for preserving the oral traditions and culture of Southwest Louisiana in words and photographs. These recognized works are a series of five books published from 1991 to 2008. A sixth book, “The Midway Miner,” is about her father, Dr. Elmer Harvey Titus, and will be published posthumously.
Mariana received a bachelor’s degree in art and a teaching credential from the University of California at Santa Barbara. She taught as a substitute teacher in the 1980s and early-1990s for the Santa Barbara School District.
She created Shedding Light, a private online natural health group. Mariana inspired a diverse group of women from around the U.S. and beyond to improve their health and become their best creative selves by sharing recipes, natural remedies, exercise tips, life lessons, discussing problems and passions, setting goals and forging life-long friendships in the process. She called them “Sistahs”, leaving a positive, luminous, indelible light in their hearts forever.
Mariana’s art includes oil and acrylic paintings on canvas and metal. Many of these works were part of the “Ana Series” dedicated to her mother, Ana Teresa Allen de Perez Titus, born in Caigua, Venezuela. Her mother was affectionately called “Mama-T” by many that waved at her sitting on the porch of the family home in Franklin, Louisiana.
In the spring of 1949, Ana went to the movies in Barcelona, Venezuela. Her husband Elmer brought her to the city to have their second child, Mariana. Elmer was an American engineer working in the El Tigre oil fields after WWII. He had met Ana there and they married in 1946. It was not yet time for Ana to go to the hospital so the two went to the theater to enjoy a new release. Halfway through the film, Ana’s water broke, and she never saw the end of that movie.
Two weeks before leaving home for her annual summer hiatus in Louisiana, Mariana surprised her husband. She found the Venezuelan-Argentine film Ana never finished watching (La Balandra Isabel llegó esta tarde). On some level, Mariana realized her day drew near – time to collect the missing pieces in her beautiful life story. She and Richard viewed the movie on YouTube. Then again and again.
Mariana worked on the book about her father for 17 years. A remarkable man who was 58 years old when she was born. A farm boy in Iowa, Elmer served in Mexican Border Service after the Pancho Villa raid and as a Stable Sergeant in WWI. He successfully operated several garages in Northern Wisconsin and applied engineering skills in the oil fields of Venezuela. He found time to prospect and mine gold in the Southwest and later became a Doctor of Chiropractic with a practice in Franklin, Louisiana to support a family of six children. Mariana made the last edits to “The Midway Miner” before boarding her final flight. She knew her day drew near.
The circle of life is complete.
