Marjorie Johnson

Marjorie Johnson loved to tell the story of her premature birth Ñ she was born at home on the kitchen floor Ñ and how she survived because her engineer father built an incubator for the three-pound baby that the doctor said would never live. That sheer determination that marked her precipitous entrance into the world remained one of her most dominant characteristics. Marjorie was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her father, Leon Hampton Tippins, founded the Tippins Machinery Company. Her mother, Marie Frances Connolly Tippins, was the first woman advertising executive in Pittsburgh. Together they raised Marjorie and her younger brother George in Shadyside. Marjorie started piano lessons at six, and when she attended Taylor Allderdice High School, organ lessons followed. As a child, she was serious and shy, partly because a speech impediment that took years of speech lessons to overcome. She attended Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, and often said that she bloomed at there, becoming a successful debater, entertaining her friends by playing the popular music of the day, and accompanying the college musicals. In 1944, she received a baccalaureate degree in history and psychology and then returned to Pittsburgh. In 1945, Marjorie married William Austin Johnson, D.Sc., a metallurgical engineer at the Westinghouse Research Laboratories in Pittsburgh. In 1946, Bill was sent to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Living within the rural and highly secured grounds of Oak Ridge, the residents had to make their own entertainment, and Marjorie became an accomplished hostess. The Johnsons returned to Pittsburgh in 1948 and started a family, with the birth of Christine in 1949 and Edward "Tip" in 1953. In 1956, Bill joined TRW and the family moved to Pepper Pike. In 1959 their third child, Carolyn, was born. When Marjorie enrolled Christine in Orange Schools, she joined the PTA and found her life's work. The then-superintendent of Orange, Dr. Ballard Brady, had a project in need of a volunteer Ñ a census of the residents of the district that would, for the district's information, "designate the location of each student's home, determine the routing and number of buses, and predict the needs for the future; for the community, it would be a continual census and a complete building survey; it would illustrate transportation problems and help set-up committees for community organizations and drives." Marjorie made a door-to-door survey of the twenty-five-square-mile district, and on an eight-foot square map that covered most of a wall, marked the location of every home. Each pin that indicated a house was color-coded to reveal the number of children, if any, and whether they were public or private school students. The map was accompanied by a card catalog with census information for each address. The map Ñ and all the reams of data that went with it Ñ turned into a forty-year volunteer career for Marjorie. Because the information the project yielded was so essential, she became an official appointee of the Board and ended up routing school buses, creating planning forecasts, and registering every child for school. Her job title occasionally changed; the dedicated volunteers who helped her came and went; computers took over the bus routes; but she did the job of tracking every child in the district year in and year out. One of her favorite tricks, when giving a lift to any of her children's school friends, was to simply ask the child's name Ñ and then to proceed to tell the rider his parents' names, what they did for a living, and where his family lived! In 1957, when the high school students proposed purchasing a Hammond organ for the auditorium, Marjorie stepped forward and volunteered to give organ lessons. Another career was hatched, and over the length of it, she touched the lives of more than 120 students. At least twelve of them have become church organists. In 1961, the small fledgling group that would grow into the Church of the Western Reserve was meeting on Sundays in the Orange High School auditorium. They needed an organist; Marjorie was there. She was one of the founders of the church, served as an Elder, and was a member of the Session for eighteen years. In 1996, after thirty-five years, she retired as the church's organist. Her organ playing led her to the Cleveland chapter of the American Guild of Organists AGO. She not only attended chapter meetings and master classes, but took her students to them, and whenever opportunity knocked, she drove them and sometimes flew them to any regional or national conference she could. Her enthusiasm and support fostered many careers. In 1974, just in time for the AGO national conference, she donated a Schlicker pipe organ to the Church of the Western Reserve in memory of her parents and her first organ teacher. Her favorite student, Dale Caldwell, played the dedication recital as a convention pre-event. One of the conditions attached to gift was that the church maintain an "open organ" policy, so that organ students could gain experience on a pipe organ. When the church built its new sanctuary, she ensured that the organ was upgraded to fit the new space. It is appropriate that at her funeral service, Dale Caldwell will play this organ that meant so much to her. In 1968, Marjorie was one of the founding members of the Orange Community Arts Council, which grew from a summer program that borrowed the high school for class and theater space to a flourishing year-round organization with its own building. For many years, she served as an officer of the board. In 1985, her husband Bill died. The children were grown and gone. At a time when other people would have retired, Marjorie continued all the commitments she had made, serving on boards, working at school, and playing the organ. She opened her home to young adults just starting their careers in music and to two exchange teachers from China. In the 1990s, she was able to expand her legacy of service in new ways by making donations to fund her vision of a better community. In 1990, she provided funds to finish building a new wing for the Orange Arts Center. In 1994, she made a donation to the Orange Senior Center, another endeavor that she supported with her volunteer efforts. After several minor strokes in the 1990s, Marjorie began to cut back on her work. In 2001 she retired from her active volunteer life and moved to Breckenridge Village. She still managed to get to her 60th college reunion in 2004, but a bad fall later in the year landed her in the hospital, where she had a major stroke. She died on Sunday, April 11, 2010, at home, from the complications of vascular dementia. Her service will be Saturday, April 17, 2010, at 2:00 P.M. at the Church of the Western Reserve, 30500 Fairmount Boulevard, Pepper Pike, Ohio 44124. A reception at the church will follow the service. She will be buried in Smithfield East End Cemetery in Pittsburgh, across from the house she grew up in. Her life was full, because she made it so. She seized every opportunity to make her community a better place and to enrich the lives of the students she met. She overcame obstacles with persistence, hard work, and the same determination that marked her birth. And she did it with joy. Marjorie is survived by her children, Christine Johnson Domino, Centennial, Colorado, and spouse Grant A. Domino; Edward "Tip" Tippins Johnson, Willoughby Hills, Ohio; Carolyn Marjorie Johnson, M.D., St. Louis, Missouri, and partner, Jordan Mack; and by her grandchild, Lauren Anne Domino of Seattle, Washington, and spouse Andrew Schroeder. Her brother George died in 2005, but Marjorie is survived by her sister-in-law, Carolyn Tippins, and her nephews, John and William Tippins and their families, all of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. For those wishing to make donations, the family suggests these organizations: Church of the Western Reserve, 30500 Fairmount Boulevard, Pepper Pike, Ohio 44124 Agnes Scott College, 141 E. College Ave, Decatur, Georgia 30030 Orange Schools Foundation, 32000 Chagrin Boulevard, Pepper Pike, Ohio 44124 Alzheimer's Association, P.O. Box 74924, Cleveland, Ohio 44194 BROWN-FORWARD SERVICE 216 752-1200


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