Photos by John Napalan
The two twin sisters are having a conversation that could be had by any siblings in Long Beach, but could also be only had by these two women: Marilyn Bohl and Arline Walter. They’re trying to figure out whose place to meet at to take a few pictures together—that’s the normal part. The part that’s specific to these sisters? They’re discussing which iconic Long Beach sports venue to visit. It just so happens that the Walter Pyramid and Bohl Diamond at Blair Field bear their names, and stand as monuments to a lifetime of giving.
In acts both big and small, the two sisters have helped keep innumerable youth, high school, and college teams afloat over the last several decades. They don’t post about it on social media or accept much credit—but it’s also impossible to imagine where things in Long Beach would be had they not happened to adopt the city as their own decades ago.
“I can’t help but think, what would high school baseball be without them, what would Long Beach State be without them?” asked former Dirtbags interim coach Bryan Peters in a recent interview. “What would The 562 be without them, and what would our athletic department be without them? Without them, we wouldn’t have been able to stay afloat.”
Midwestern Roots
The twins grew up in Marble Rock, Iowa, a tiny dot on the map a mere 1,824 miles from Long Beach. It was a picturesque upbringing in a small town of 600. The Bohl sisters graduated from Marble Rock High School as 1/7 of the graduating class of 14 students.
Their father volunteered as the town’s basketball coach, with a roster full of soldiers recently returned from active duty in World War II. They saw up close the power of sports to do more than just entertain.
“They’d been in all these horrible places and were trying to figure out how to return their lives to normal,” said Marilyn.
They grew up pre-Title IX, but girls’ basketball was already a big high school sport in Iowa, and the twins were the star guards for Marble Rock High. The Marble Rock Rockettes were undefeated en route to their state tournament led by the Bohl twins, who drew press and praise for being all-conference but also for the novelty of being twin sisters carving up opposing teams.
They were competitive, sports-loving Midwesterners, but they got along well with each other. Asked which of them was the better player, Arline said, “We were the same, there wasn’t that much difference.” They were good students, too—Arline would win the arithmetic competitions at school and Marilyn would win the spelling bees.
They had big dreams—Marilyn worked with a local newspaper and wanted to become a sports reporter, before being told by the high school superintendent that she should look to be a society editor or food editor, because women hadn’t yet cracked being reporting journalists.
After being named co-valedictorians of Marble Rock High, the twins set off into the wider world with their eyes on college and professional success.
Trailblazing Professionals
College was where the twin sisters’ lives first diverged. They first went to Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, 90 miles away from their hometown. After that they went to New Hampton and taught for three years at the local elementary school to save money to pursue a four-year degree.
After that, Arline surprised the family by opting for the University of Iowa, while Marilyn went to the University of Northern Iowa. The 88 miles between those schools represented the largest distance between the sisters of their lives to that point. But they both majored in math, were top of their class, and prepared for trailblazing professional careers worthy of their own feature stories.
In Iowa City, Arline met Mike Walter in a shared class while she was working on her Masters and he was getting his PhD. The two were on the cutting edge of the early days of computer programming, and in 1965 one of Arline’s first jobs was working on a collision avoidance application for air traffic controllers.
“You just picked up a manual and taught yourself at that point,” said Arline.
The pair moved to Massachusetts and worked for Honeywell, where Mike developed online computing and Arline worked on programming. They moved to California, then Michigan, then Delaware for professional opportunities in business and education. Mike hit a ceiling at DuPont, and was recruited to Levi’s in San Francisco. Arline had no trouble finding jobs in programming wherever they went through the 60s and 70s—her professional success while also raising their children, Lance and Angela, was a rarity at the time.
“It was unusual enough that the ladies at the church thought it was terrible that I worked when I had little kids,” said Arline. “People didn’t do it, especially when their kids were little. I was working one Friday and the baby came Sunday night. It was not the thing to do then—but I loved what I did.”
With a rare dual-income family structure, the Walters saved and invested well. Mike jumped back into the education world with a Dean position at St. Mary’s, and then came to Long Beach State as a Dean in 1993.
Meanwhile, Marilyn had no trouble finding work after getting her degree at Northern Iowa, math with a minor in history. Her dual talents in math and as a writer shaped her professional journey. She took her first job in Chicago, where she was part of a staff writing math books for elementary and then high school teachers. Most importantly, she had a place just a few blocks from Wrigley Field, and she spent her weekends watching the Cubs play.
She then took a job with Collins Radio, who sent her to programming school and put her to work writing in Autocoder, an early programming language. She took a job with Honeywell, and then in 1969 was recruited to IBM in Palo Alto.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, Marilyn lived the life well-known to generations of tech pioneers since, throwing herself into work that she loved. On the side, she started writing textbooks for Science Research Associates, penning nine books on databases, information processing, computer concepts, and programming logic. The books were wildly successful, with one of them still receiving new editions more than three decades later.
“People didn’t know anything about computers yet, and teachers didn’t know anything either, yet they had to teach this stuff,” said Marilyn. She’d work a twelve hour day at IBM from 7am until 7pm and then go home, sit at the typewriter and work on a textbook until two or three in the morning, then get up and do it again the next day.
“She loved it,” said Arline.
Sensing a future for computers in the home and not just as business tools, Marilyn left IBM for Ingres, where she was on the ground floor of the PC market. She would rise to the role of a Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer with Ingres and Dynasty.
Asked if it was common to see other women in the fields they were working in, the two twins laughed. Marilyn showed a picture of a large gathering at an IBM event, where she was the only woman present.
“When we were majoring in math there was only one other woman in all of our classes with the major,” said Arline.
Like her sister, Marilyn came from humble Midwestern roots, and she saved and invested money from her two successful careers well. After a holiday visit with the Walters at the turn of the century, Marilyn decided to move to Long Beach in 2001—reuniting the trailblazing twins.
Arriving in Long Beach
After separate professional careers that crisscrossed the nation, the twin sisters were reunited for good in Long Beach in February of 2001 when Marilyn purchased a home in her sister’s family’s adopted hometown. Ironically, they had followed a well-worn path, although a few decades later. Waves of immigrants from Iowa to Long Beach gave the city the nickname “Iowa By the Sea” a century ago.
With Arline and Mike’s arrival in 1993 and Marilyn’s arrival in 2001, the twin sisters immediately began making an impact. Their generosity to Long Beach State resulted in the naming of the Mike and Arline Walter Pyramid as well as the renaming of the city’s most iconic baseball stadium as Bohl Diamond at Blair Field in 2017.
But ask anyone who’s been around the university for the last two decades and they’ll tell you, the twins’ impact goes far beyond the financial. Along with the men in their lives, they’ve been a constant presence at Long Beach State sporting events.
“Regardless of their generosity to the athletic department, they’ve given their time and their heart and their love of the student-athlete,” said LBSU men’s volleyball coach Alan Knipe. “Not only are they knowledgeable on the field of competition, but they know the roster and the stories behind the roster. They take time to connect—they’ll email, or text, or stop by to come see practices. They’ve been a staple of our department with different administrations and different coaches. Deep down they’re just really good people who care a lot. I consider myself fortunate to have been here long enough to get to know them on a personal level, not just a transactional level.”
Former Dirtbags coach Peters echoed Knipe’s comments.
“Their fandom is unparalleled,” he said. “Marilyn keeps score, and her baseball knowledge is really high—she remembers people, stats, games, plays from games that were 20 years ago. She keeps detailed scouting reports, she’s really on it. But they love people—they’re invested in our players in all our sports. Their heart is so big, their care factor is huge. It makes the connection between everyone that much stronger.”
While it’s their impact at the college that has gotten the most attention, the twins have done a ton of work behind the scenes around the city. They made a donation to help build Long Beach Poly’s baseball team a clubhouse, and donated money to Uptown Long Beach’s youth program to help send a youth all-star team to Hawaii for a tournament. They’ve funded tutoring programs and served on the boards of the YMCA of Greater Long Beach, the Assistance League, and countless other boards and causes. They’re also active at Trinity Lutheran Church in Downtown Long Beach, serving not only on its board but also volunteering to help organizationally, and in the church’s choir.
While the money they’ve donated would be more than enough to make an impact, both sisters have strived to have a more personal connection with the students and athletes they’re helping. More than just writing checks, they also volunteer their time. Arline has served as a volunteer tutor for the university’s athletic program, and just last month Marilyn was serving food for the student-athletes at the Century Club’s Middle School All-City Banquet.
A Legacy of Giving
Long Beach is lucky to have welcomed them to the city, but the sisters have left a legacy of giving everywhere they’ve gone. Marble Rock, that little town in Iowa where they grew up? The center of town is the Walter F. Bohl Community Center. The building used to be the high school gymnasium, where the twin sisters played basketball, but with the school closed the town wanted to convert it to a community center. The problem was they didn’t have the funds.
The twins donated money in 2003 to repair and upgrade it in their father’s memory, and it now serves as a community hub, hosting regular breakfasts, craft fairs, and even Santa Claus visits in December. Marilyn has made major donations to Luther College, and Saint Mary’s College in addition to her support of Long Beach State.
The two duck praise or adulation as often as possible. Despite the millions of dollars they’ve donated to the university and other Long Beach institutions, this is the first time a journalist has sat down with the two of them as a pair, for example.
They choose not to focus on social media or individual honors, but on the impact that they can make.
“We do say that we are blessed,” said Marilyn. “We absolutely say that we are blessed. My whole concept is, I just want to make a difference.”
Arline pulled the curtain back on why they do what they do. Fighting through tears, she said, “When somebody comes back that was here a long time ago, and they say ‘it’s so good to see you again’ and we get a big hug, that’s all we need. That’s all we need.”
Disclosure: Marilyn Bohl and Arline Walter are donors to the562, with Marilyn serving on our board and as a founding sponsor. I have been interested in their life story since I first saw the two of them at a Long Beach State basketball game more than two decades ago, and after getting to know them felt it was a story more than worth telling even with their connection to our organization.
