Marcia DeCann Anderson Memorial

Preface To: Marcia DeCann Anderson In-Memoriam July, 2012 To comprehend Marcia’s life, it is helpful to understand the foundation on which it was built.

Highland Park, Michigan is a suburb completely surrounded by Detroit. Visually Highland Park (HP) is indistinguishable from its big brother with streets laid out exactly the same and with alleys. By the 1950s it was really part of the urban core. HP presented a unique and favorable place to grow up due to Henry Ford. In a way, we who grew up in HP are all Henry’s step children due to two of his decisions. First, HP was the place Henry chose to build his first production line plant around 1908. A couple years later he offered the $5 a day wage…doubling a typical wage of the time. As a result, HP grew rapidly…from 4,000 people in 1910 to 40,000 in 1920; the most rapid population increase in US history. Housing of all types was built to accommodate the thousands of incoming workers and management types.

HP was one of the most, if not the most, prosperous cities in the Country in 1920.

Below is picture of the Ford plant and surrounding neighborhoods in the 1930s. Woodward Av., Detroit’s main drag, runs in front of the plant. Note the residential neighborhood in upper right of the photo; it is representative of housing throughout HP.

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Part of the growth was the construction of educational facilities that were second to none.

Ferris Elementary school, which Marcia attended from 4th grade through 8th, was a three story all brick structure with indoor pool, two gyms, auditorium, and music/lunch room. The quality of the instruction matched the excellence of the structure. Highland Park High School was built with similar superiority. The school system was in the top ten in the Country for decades.

A block away from Ferris was the McGregor library, a world class facility constructed of granite with bronze doors in 1925. It won a gold medal for architecture and cost $500,000, raised from a public bond issue, at the time. Marcia’s family plunked her down within three blocks of state of the art educational tools.

Henry’s second decision influencing our lives was to move his main production plant from HP to down river Detroit in River Rouge. After the production of roughly 15 million cars, Henry made the move in 1929. If you are wondering, the reason for the move was to get closer to water ways needed to get raw materials in and product out most efficiently. But with the move, HP began a downward slide in which higher income families began moving out to be replaced by those lower on the economic scale. The transition was accelerated after World War II by the creation of new suburbs outside of Detroit. By the time Marcia and the rest of her generation (including this writer) arrived on the scene in the late 1940s, HP was rapidly becoming a heterogeneous population with a diversity of economic, social, and racial people.

We arrived at precisely the right time to have the best of both worlds. In school, our education was as good as could be obtained in the Country. As an example, in 4th grade (1952 and 1953) Marcia and her classmates were writing letters to US Senators and Congressmen to urge their support of the St. Laurence Seaway. Below is a picture of the Seaway model the class constructed.

This writer still has the return letter received from Senator Hubert Humphrey. We learned the “three Rs”. But we were also learning on the streets, playgrounds, and malt shops. There were 2

the early stages of gangs…guys in black leather jackets. There was economic diversity among classmates; a lawyer’s son might be seated next to a truck driver’s daughter and both were friends with the school teacher’s son behind them. Blacks were starting to show up in classrooms and at the malt shops. In fact by the time segregation was being tackled nationally in the 1960s, those of us from HP wondered what the big deal was. Blacks were like everyone else; liked some, did not like others; and vice versa.

If we were in the right place, we were also in the right time. Our parents had experienced the hard times of both the Great Depression and World War II. We arrived just in time to be carried over the prosperity bridge to good times; jobs were plentiful and our families were doing well with better housing, a car, and modern conveniences. We were free to roam, play, and learn.

Point is we were receiving an education both in and out of school benefiting us once into adulthood. We were secure, optimistic, smart, and could deal with a diversity of people.

Perhaps most important, we could dream and follow those dreams.

D.A. McCray July 8, 2012

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In Memoriam By: a classmate from Highland Park

"You're always given the next step. It only looks like a path when you look back." Dr. Marcia DeCann Andersen

In the 1920s Henry Ford’s risk taking and perseverance spawned an auto empire as well as a community, Highland Park, which would nurture its youth to remarkable lives. In the 1950s Marcia DeCann took her first steps in the nurturing environment to a life where her own individualistic vision and resolve would provide care and light to countless numbers of lost souls.

Her life contained hundreds of steps; she climbed higher with each one.

Marcia’s path began in 1951 when her family moved into a duplex at 62 Elmhurst between Woodward (Detroit’s main drag) and Second St. in Highland Park. A year or so later Marcia’s best friend through high school, Sybil Wilson, moved in across the street. I lived less than a block away on Elmhurst between Second and Third Streets. We were part of a neighborhood group made up of 4 or 5 girls and around 10 guys that were together through high school.

One of the early memories was of Marcia’s mother dropping her and sister Polly off at the malt shop on Second next to Ferris early in the morning on the way to her job as a GM secretary.

The soda jerk had the job of hustling the girls out the door when the first school bell rang.

Either in the morning or at lunch both girls played marbles along the fence of the Ferris play yard along Second. Marcia recalled: “Don’t forget the marble troughs along Second Ave. I loved playing marbles in the dirt.

The story of the malt shop and the yard are well expressed in the words of Marcia’ sister, Polly: (from a July, 2009 email in response to a story I was writing on the yard) “I assume your story is based on the place we called the "Boys' playground"….Naturally, being of the girl persuasion, I preferred the Girls' playground on the Woodward end of the Ferris campus…. But when Marcia and I were very young, our mom used to drop us off at the Boys' playground when she left for work every morning. Marcia, typical of an older kid with a little sister, would abandon me for more interesting company. (Yes, Marcia, you did! You're a wonderful sister now, but you were sometimes kind of mean when we were little!) I would set up my marbles and holler "Get the purey in the hole and ya get it!" over and over until I attracted a victim. Anyway, your story is all about playing ball, but thought you might also recall that there were a lot of marble games going on along the fence!

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One other thing, do you remember the little store, kind of a soda shop with a fountain, on the same side of Second as Ferris, just north of the alley that bordered on the Boys' playground? In the wintertime, our mom would leave us there before she went to work. The waitress was in charge of seeing that we left for school when the first bell rang. Might sound kind of grim, but I loved it because Mom would give us a quarter so we could have a milkshake before school.

This was a huge treat for me, to have ice cream in the morning. Marcia and I also usually had enough coin to play a couple of songs on the jukebox, too. "Get a job, shoobie do wah", "He was a mean motorscooter and a bad go-getter," and "Why's everybody always picking on me?" Happy memories. Sorry to butt into your conversation, but nice that you included Marcia's bratty little sister. Polly”

“Bratty little sister”? Perhaps so, but one Marcia has adored; the two have been close all their lives.

Below is a picture of the Ferris schoolyard. The picture is from the 1930s but the setting looked exactly the same in the 50s. Second is at the bottom, the school off to the right, and the soda shop is at the far left edge of the photo. Can’t you see Marcia in her nice little school dress on her knees shooting marbles?

Marcia and Sybil tended to be at or near the center of the neighborhood get-togethers. One of those benefitting from their efforts was Sharon Finch who was a year younger and lived two doors down from Sybil. Sharon described her relationship with the two older girls: “Do you remember the story of how I got hooked up with Marcia and Sybil? It is so cute. I was a bookworm, an only child, quite solitary. I Lived across the street from Marcia and down… from Sybil. They were best friends. At age 12, they decided to take me under their wings…. So they brought me into their circle of friends. I loved the camaraderie, blossomed, and became quite a different child than I had been. This probably made the biggest difference in my life -gave me a social experience I might not otherwise have had. They were dear girls. If you are still in touch with either or both, tell them I said thanks!”

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The two girls staged many a social event for the neighborhood kids at their homes. I recall a western theme party at Marcia’s house and dance and spin the bottle parties at Sybil’s. Then there was the water balloon fight leading to the most mortifying moment of Marcia’s young life. The drenched girls went into Sybil’s house to change. In Marcia’s words: “The only one (story) that wildly jumps out was the horrible memory for Syb and I re the open window shade incident. Syb and I were best friends and both of us were a little prudish and shy re guys, though we were great flirts. One late evening we were changing clothes right in front of her bedroom window that faced the street… because I was sleeping over. I do not know why it did not occur to us to pull down the window shade when changing.. My house was across the street and my bedroom faced an old house a few feet away so I never had to close any shades because the old folks who lived there could barely walk let along gawk. Anyway, unknown to us, a whole big group of boys were coming through my yard and down the walk at the side of my house and looked up at Sybil’s window across the street and saw us changing. They came across the street and stood there and watched the show unfolding before them. After being quiet a while, they started whistling and laughing. We were so completely horrified, I don’t think either of us ever got over it. I still blush thinking about how horrified we were. I begged my mother not to make me ever go to school again-seriously. And so did Syb.”

As an aside, this guy was not too happy either since Sybil was my girl!

Nancy Lyon, another of Marcia’s classmates, recalled several gatherings at the DeCanns’ including overnight parties, guy vs. gal snowball fights, and chocolate chip making in Marcia’s kitchen. Problem was most of the dough disappeared before it could get to the oven. Marcia’s mom took a group of the girls to see “An Affair To Remember” at a local theater…and the use of an entire box of Kleenex. Nancy also worked with Marcia on the yearbook as co-editor or design editor.

Below are two pictures with Marcia. The one on the left is with Sybil (on right) at the 8th Grade graduation dance in 1956. The other was with a group in 1955. Marcia is on left with glasses. The boy on the left at top of picture, Steve Englehardt, was Marcia’s boyfriend in grade school.

In the picture below Marcia is in the middle of the second row with Sybil next to her.

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When I sent the 8th grade dance pictures to Marcia in 2012, she replied “Don’t I look like a prissy little thing?” My reply was to say words such as “proper” and “conservative” were appropriate but not “prissy”. Marcia was always well regarded by all that knew her. She was bright, hard working, cordial, and always seemed to be in control. Once into high school these traits lead to her being the editor of the school paper, yearbook, or both (I don’t recall). Below is a picture of the yearbook or paper staff in 1959. Marcia is in the middle of the row standing.

Looking back Marcia agreed we were so lucky to go grow up where and with whom we did. In July, 2004, she commented: “… yes, what a fun group to grow up with. I think of those days often with our little group and all the fun we had; [it] has influenced my life. I think of it especially when talking to my clients, many of whom had very sad childhoods.”

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After graduation I had no contact with Marcia until 2004…a period of 44 years (I could ask where the years went but, alas, I know). Somehow Polly tracked me down and put me in contact with Marcia. In August, 2004 Marcia summed up the 44 years of her life. It is repeated verbatim: “Chapter Two of my life......

(Chapter One being childhood and all the fun we had as “Parkers on the Porches”.)

In 1960, I left home after graduating from Highland Park High School and worked at a camp for orphans in Hesperia, Michigan. Later that year, I took my first long distance bus ride alone to Cleveland to visit the Cleveland Christian Home and see all my little charges. I wanted to adopt them all.

In the fall of 1960, I entered University School of Nursing. My mom bet me a dime I wouldn't make it through (she wanted me to be a librarian) and I was a bit afraid as a sophomore, she might turn out to be right. My instructor in my sophomore "recovery room" class sent me to a counselor to counsel me out of nursing. The counselor, Mrs. Marshall, told me to quit nursing school said I would never make it in nursing. I was so sad. Then I decided they could not force me to quit, as my grades were ok so I kept going to class and never heard any more about that. I graduated and worked in public health nursing, geriatric nursing, emergency room nursing and taught nursing at U/M and Harper Hospital School of Nursing while raising a family. I went back to school in 1972 and got a masters degree in 1974. In 1978, I was to be the first person to get a doctoral degree in Nursing from U/M. They decided to stop the graduation ceremony at Hill Auditorium, in Ann Arbor (as a complete surprise to me) to recognize my accomplishment with a special honor ceremony. They had asked the Dean of the College Nursing to hood me (with the doctoral hood) but she was out of town so they asked the associate dean to do the honors.

Imagine my surprise when they stopped the U/M graduation and Mrs. Marshall (by then the associate dean) stepped forward to put my doctoral hood on me. I wonder if she ever knew who I was and how she had counseled me to leave nursing so many years ago.

I married John Andersen, an engineer whom I met while we were students at U/M in 1964. We had two beautiful and wonderful daughters, Maureen in 1966 and Rebecca in 1975. They are the light of my life and my greatest pride and joy. They basically raised themselves as I was always in school, but they did a wonderful job and are both happily married and have fantastic children of their own. My husband and I divorced in 1987. We remain friends but just never learned to live in harmony and decided to live in peace separately. We had fun at our daughters' weddings in Yosemite and Idaho and may not have if we hadn't divorced when we did so we could remain friends.

Polly and her husband, Joe Russo, live in Florida. They have a happy life in a state with beautiful weather nearly all the time. They were companions and care givers for our parents in the last years of their lives. They had had a wonderful adventure living in Poland for years, but decided to return to the US to be near our parents. They brought so much joy to our folks during their years together in Florida. Our dad died in 2001 and our mom in 2003. Our mom was buried during the big blackout of 2003. We always say that when she went, she turned the lights out not just for us but for millions.”

After my U/M graduation in 1978, I taught nursing at Wayne State University. I realized that nurses should be learning…from nursing agencies, not medical agencies, so I decided to start one. I incorporated a nursing company in 1983 and got a grant to work with women in Michigan prisons who were drug addicted. My company went on to staff hospital units where we made the money to open my life dream company in 1990, a second nursing company, Personalized Nursing LIGHT House, Inc. [It is] a drug treatment program where clients would live in my facility

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instead of a medical facility. We use a nursing model in our addiction recovery program that I developed.

Both companies have grown over the years. The first, now called Well Being Institute, has had many grants from the federal and state government to do nursing outreach projects with hard to reach and serve clients. We have had projects in New York City, Baltimore, Md. and in inner city Detroit. Currently we are funded to locate sex workers and HIV Positive drug addicts in the Cass Corridor of Detroit, and connect them to the health care they need. We make home visits and transport them when they can't get to medical appointments.

The LIGHT House has grown since 1990 when we opened with 10 beds. We now house 36 addicted men and women in our Plymouth, Mi facility and 12 in our Ann Arbor facility. We also house 12 in our Detroit Program, which is specifically for HIV Positive substance abusers and where we integrate the care for their HIV and Substance Abuse. We hope to expand all three sites this year. I have wonderful staff that more and more, is running both companies.

And I am getting ready for the next chapter: writing a screenplay and television series script based on our adventures setting up the nursing companies and the stories of the men and women we have met over the years. All in all, it has been a wonderful life and I look forward to a wonderful Chapter Three (ages 62-85) and Four (85-the end).”

It did not take long for her to begin working on the next Chapter. A day after receiving the 44 year story, I received an August 2, 2004 email stating: “I am leaving this week to drive to the wilds of central remote Idaho for over a month (with no phone and no internet, only one TV station, one radio station and a local newspaper once a week) to help out with housework and grandchildren while my youngest daughter has a baby.”

It was our last communication for three years. It was also a harbinger of a startling transition to come.

Sometime in the following three years, Marcia stepped into Chapter Three. Time working with drug addicts and alcoholics had taken its toll. She said: "I had spent my life helping people get off artificial substances; I had to heal my soul from all the sad stories” (Post Register, Idaho Falls, 10-2-2008)

In an October, 2007 email titled “Hi From Idaho” she wrote: “I

retired and moved to the wilderness in Idaho. I love it. I live in a tiny cabin with a barn and sheds very near my youngest daughter and her family. I have built a wonderful life here and made wonderful new friends and seem to have lots to do with my family, friends, my new to me mule (26 years old and retired, like me) and ATV. I love being retired. I feel like I am reinventing my wheel! From running drug treatment programs in Detroit to feeding a horse and two mules every day in the mountains of Idaho has been quite a change and a whole new adventure.”.

Don’t you just love the way she groups herself in with the mule? Marcia, now with the nickname “Mountain Woman”, included several pictures. Below are five of the more memorable ones. Marcia’s cabin is on left; daughter’s on right.

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On left is Marcia riding her mule, Belle, in front of her mountain cabin. On the right she is with her wilderness instructor. The two have just smoked a cow hide. It turned into a yellow color that Marcia made into a buckskin dress. Below is a picture of Marcia in Mountain Woman wear and one with daughters and grand children.

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Marcia looks healed, happy, and healthy. The three “H”s were clearly the tone of all the emails. But she was not ready to give up the nursing. So began her next step: The (Idaho) Wilderness Nurse. She began studying the healing power of plants and spices. To quote from her website (see reference below): “She took classes at the Salmon Idaho Outdoor School and received consultation from Darcy Williamson, a well-known herbalist in McCall, Idaho. She also made contact with Dr. James Duke, famous author of The Green Pharmacy and many other well-respected herbal books. She used Dr. Duke’s herbal medicine database, developed at the United States Department of Agriculture, to research and produce a herbal medicine chart.

She established a website titled “Wilderness Nurse”. If you “Google” the term, you can easily find a link to her site. She added gun skills in 2011 as indicated in her Christmas 2011 letter/email: “I had another fantastic year in the paradise of the central Idaho wilderness. This year, I took a hunter safety class…. I not only had to pass a difficult written test but also had to shoot a gun at the rifle range, demonstrate how to safely transfer a gun over a fence and walk in a line of hunters safely carrying a firearm. I loved the course and really learned as much about wilderness survival, respecting property and animals, the mechanics of different weapons, and general safety as I did about hunting. But, alas, I haven’t been hunting. I am more of a gardener.

Becky harvested an antelope and Dave got a huge elk and a deer so…I decided I should provide the potatoes and vegetables.”

We developed mutual respect for each other’s opinions on our writings. In 2008, I wrote a lengthy story that started out as a love story about my and Shari’s (wife of 38 years) romance. I was looking for someone to read and critique it. Having respected Marcia since high school and knowing she had interest since it was someone she knew, I asked her. She responded with a number of very good suggestions. Then in February, 2012 she returned the request by asking my two cents on an article she was preparing on curing one’s self in the absence of medical care. Marcia stated “I need a ruthless critique” and questioned my capability for ruthlessness. My response was to tell her she obviously had not spoken to anyone who stood in my business path. I assured her I would do my best to convey my worst (on her writing)!

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I responded within a few days. Her last words to me were: “Yippi! Just what I needed.” and “No one…has given me the meat and potatoes comments you did.” Note the enthusiasm; Marcia was into her next step with gusto.

Alas, it ended all too suddenly four months later. On June 5, 2012, Marcia’s final step arrived years before due. But her steps will continue. Eventually we can look back on other paths; only these will be traveled by her successors, daughters Maureen and Rebecca, her grand children, Mackenzie, Alex, Lexie, Katie, & Justine and their children. It is the circle of life propelling us to new heights.

So, we are left with a heavy heart and two questions. How did Marcia’s life jive with what we knew about her in Highland Park? And where did she surprise the hell out of us? If I had to pick one word to describe Marcia it would be “capable” in its highest sense. Whatever she did, it would be done well. Proper, serious, focused, conservative, leader, bright are all appropriate.

Look at her pictures when in her teens…all of the previous adjectives are notable. I would have expected her to be a world class English teacher, a school principal, or district superintendent. Perhaps she would become the head of nursing at a major hospital or hospital administrator; maybe the head of the nursing program at Wayne State U. or the University of Michigan.

All turned out to be too conventional or tame for Marcia. Why? Because she possessed traits we, or at least I, never imagined. “Risk taker” or “adventurer” is one key element. Who would have imagined her working with drug addicts on the streets of New York and Detroit? Or starting two non-profit corporations for addicts? Or packing it all in to ride a mule and tan hides in the mountains of Idaho in her 60s?

“Fervor” or ardent passion for helping those in serious need reached the core of her being.

Many want to help others, damn few reach as deep to get the job done. We knew Marcia wanted to do good work. But we had no idea how passionate the desire was. It strikes me as bordering on (being a good) obsession.

Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken, jumped to mind. The last stanza reads:

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Marcia made a life of taking steps on the less traveled path. Her steps crunched ignorance, antipathy, and callousness while breaking new trails for her and those she touched.

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Good bye and may God cradle you on your last step; it was a heaven of path, Dear Lady.

I close with two photos:

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By: D.A. McCray July 8, 2012

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