Marilyn Joanne Crandall Green

Marilyn Joanne Crandall Green, age 87, of Norwell, Massachusetts and formerly of Fairfield, Iowa, passed away on June 26, 2017. A Celebration of Life Service will be held at 2:00 PM Saturday, August 19, 2017, at First United Methodist Church, 326 N Lowe St., Dowagiac, with Pastor Jodi Cartwright officiating. Burial to follow at South Wayne Community Church Cemetery, Wayne Township, Michigan. Friends may visit with the family from 6:00 PM until 8:00 PM on Friday August 18, 2017 at Clark Chapel, 405 Center St., Dowagiac. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Cass County Parks, 120 N. Broadway Street, Suite 209, Cassopolis, MI 49031, with the memo directing memorials to Fred Russ Forest Park noting in your donation Marilyn Crandall Green. Marilyn was born August 10, 1929 at home on her family farm in Webster Township, Wayne County, Indiana to Noah Edward Crandall and Edith Leone (Oler) Crandall.   Marilyn was originally a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), although she began attending the Richmond, Indiana United Methodist Church as a teenager to play the piano.   Marilyn graduated from Williamsburg High School, Williamsburg, Indiana in 1946, and received her bachelor’s degree in music from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana in 1952.  While at Earlham, she served with the American Friends Service Committee building a community center in Jamaica, and also attended the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan.    After graduation, Marilyn moved to South Bend, Indiana, where she taught vocal music at Washington High School and Pierre Navarre Junior High.   In 1953, she met Maurice Warner Green, Jr. at a church dance.  They were married six months later on June 26, 1954, at Richmond United Methodist Church.  In 1957, Marilyn earned her Master’s Degree in Music from Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. She continued teaching high school vocal music in South Bend until the family moved to South Holland, Illinois in 1969.   In South Holland, Marilyn was a church choir director, piano teacher and active in the Junior Womens’ Club of South Holland.  In 1972, the family moved to Fairfield, Iowa.   In 1974, Marilyn was contacted by the Fairfield Community School District to fill an immediate opening as an elementary art teacher.   She taught elementary art at most of the elementary schools in the Fairfield Community School District until her retirement, and was named Iowa Art Educator of the Year in 1997.   While living in Fairfield, Marilyn continued her love of both art and music, including teaching piano lessons and active involvement in the First United Methodist Church choir.  She was a member of Fairfield First United Methodist Church, Delta Kappa Gamma, the American Association of University Women (AAUW), the National Society of Arts and Letters, Art Educators of Iowa and the Fairfield Art Association. As an art teacher, Marilyn loved sharing her students’ art.   Even at home, she shared student masterpieces with family, always adding how creative, talented, original, colorful or inventive each student was.   She encouraged her students to both be creative in their own work and learn about the world’s great artists. Marilyn is survived by her four children, Dr. David Warner Green and wife Donna, Dr. Thomas Crandall Green and wife Angela, Melinda Taft Hugdahl, J.D. and husband Dag, and Dr. Carolyn Elizabeth Green Boudreault and husband Gerard, her five beloved grandsons, Michael Henry Warner Green, Andrew David Green, Erik Warner Hugdahl, Gerard Maurice Boudreault and Camille Robert Boudreault, as well as her brother and sisters in law, Howard and Mary Jane Burdett and Doris Green, and her eleven nieces and nephews.   She was preceded in death by her husband, mother, stepfather John Rothermel, her father, brother Robert Edward Crandall, sister in law Lily Crandall, and brother in law Robert Green.