Marilyn Ann Wylie, educator, arts advocate, wife, and mother, passed away Tuesday, December 8, 2020, following a months’ long illness. She was 84.
Mrs. Wylie, a resident of the Morada community, had a distinguished career as a public schools’ teacher in Southern California, Northern Virginia, Texas, and at Stockton’s Edison High School from which she retired in 2007. She taught home economics at Edison but much of her teaching career was devoted to arts education, serving as a teacher and an arts and grants administrator.
Her professional achievements in art education were recognized by the Texas State Art Education Association who named her Texas State Art Educator of the Year in 1996. The National Art Education Association subsequently named her Art Teacher of the Year for the western states.
She helped establish a new arts magnet school in Houston that was recognized by the Annenberg Foundation as one of the top 10 innovative schools in Houston, designated a “Beacon School for the 21st Century.” She was responsible for developing and implementing the school’s arts curriculum.
While teaching in Northern Virginia’s Fairfax County School System, she and a colleague obtained two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities that enabled them to introduce a new schools curriculum celebrating colonial arts in a “Sheep to Shawl” program. Students learned to spin, dye and weave fabric through which they were introduced to Virginia’s colonial history.
When Mrs. Wylie returned to California and settled in Stockton in 1999, she joined community organizations and became an activist for gender equality. She was legislative chair for the Tau Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma (DKG), the retired teachers’ sorority, and public policy chair for the American Association of University Women – Stockton Branch (AAUW). She was also a member of the League of Women Voters, a docent at the Haggin Museum, and is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Her community activism earned her the Susan B. Anthony Medal in 2017 from the San Joaquin County Commission on the Status of Women.
In the year 2000, she was elected a vice president and director of Park Bixby Tower, Inc., a non-profit corporation aiding the elderly. Mrs. Wylie established the organization’s first grants program. The Haggin Museum was a major beneficiary with grants helping to modernize and improve its collections, particularly in ways that would benefit seniors. In addition, she obtained grants supporting literacy programs sponsored by AAUW and DKG.
As part of her corporate philanthropic work, she established a senior wellness program in 2007 with California State University Long Beach benefitting community seniors. At the same time, she led efforts leading to the University’s decision to locate and operate a senior university -- Osher Life-Long Learning Institute (OLLI) -- off campus in the central business district of Long Beach and nearer to the city’s senior population.
Mrs. Wylie was born and grew up in Glendale, CA, the daughter of Curtis and Annabell George. She is a 1958 graduate of UCLA with a Bachelor of Science degree. She later earned a Master of Arts degree from Sam Houston State University near Houston.
In 1959 she married Russell Lee Wylie whom she met at UCLA through involvement in student activities. Last year they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. At UCLA she was a member of the Delta Delta Delta Sorority, a class vice president, a member of then UC Presidents Robert Gordon Sproul’s and later President Clark Kerr’s student advisory Cal Club, and was named an outstanding graduate for class year 1958.
In addition to her husband, she is survived by her sons Matthew Lee Wylie of Alexandria VA and his wife Katherine Ong Wylie, and Michael Curtis Wylie of Long Beach, CA, and his wife Lora Kermode Wylie, and two grandsons, David Lee Wylie and Edward Madison (Ted) Wylie, both of Alexandria; sister-in-law Nancy Wylie Hathcock and Jeff Hathcock of Long Beach; and niece Allyson Oplinger and husband Robert Oplinger, of Phoenix, AZ. Her brother Ronald George predeceased her in 2006.