Jeremiah Toller/Arizona Republic

Marilee Lasch shares her story at the Undercover event at the Crescent Ballroom on October 8, 2018

KJZZ partners with the Arizona Republic to bring you the Arizona Storytellers series. We record the live events and share them with you on the radio. In Phoenix, the storytellers sometimes share stories about our community or the life events that have shaped them in general. Megan Finnerty is the creator of the series. 

Marilee Lasch grew up in North Dakota. She's the seventh of eight children and grew up wearing hand-me-downs, but neither she nor her siblings ever minded.

After graduating from high school, Lasch got married. Soon their family grew and Lasch had to sew a lot of their clothes in order to stay within their budget. When the family moved to Phoenix a few years later, Lasch got a job at JCPenney as a display manager. Her job was to make the store look like the designers in Nordstrom, Macy's, and Robinson's. It was a challenge for Lasch.

The next storytelling event is April 8, 2019, at the Churchill in Phoenix.

→ Hear More Arizona Storytellers