Marcia Jane Dickinson

Marcia Jane Dickinson
Marcia Jane Dickinson passed away in her sleep on January 26, 2007 in Independence. A Memorial Gathering will be held on Tuesday, January 30th at The Groves Living Center beginning at 2:00 p.m. with a Memorial Service at 3:00 p.m.
Marcia was born March 18, 1922 in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska to Mary Averill Dickinson and Neil Dickinson, a railroad man. The family moved to Missouri during the Great Depression to seek better opportunities through farming. Marcia excelled in academics and was enrolled in the Teachers College in Warrensburg when she was only 16 years old. She responded to a summer employment ad in Kansas City and due to her great beauty, began a successful modeling career with the Kansas City School of Fine Arts and the exclusive Emery-Byrd Thayer Department store. During her career she modeled for Thomas Hart Benton.
Modeling led her to the Oregon Art Institute and Pacific Northwest during WWII, where she met an artistic and intellectual group of conscientious objectors sequestered in remote camps and providing non-military services to their country. The C.O.s were also developing and exchanging ideas through writing, poetry, music and theater that would grow into the Civil Rights Movement, San Francisco Renaissance, Pacifica Radio Network and other social movements. Marcia lived and worked among some of the most influential artists and thinkers of the time and she devoted the rest of her life to causes.
Many in the Kansas City area know Marcia was instrumental in establishing local recycling, the North American Bioregional Congress, the Heartland Chapter of the Green Party, and energy conservation programs. Employed late in her career by the Environmental Protection Agency, she helped to spread environmental education throughout the Midwest. She will be remembered for her unselfish and untiring efforts to make the world a better place.
Marcia was married to two C.O.s -
Garrett Rozeboom and Wilford Lang. Both are deceased. Marcia is survived by her children, Kato Rozeboom, Dirk Rozeboom and wife Jan, Lawrence "Skip� Lang and Marco Lang; her step children Justeena Lang, Sonya Lang Crestfield, Stan and Peter Lang; and a host of grandchildren and great grandchildren. She is also survived by her siblings and their spouses: Harriet and Norman Pyle, Hugh "Bud� and Doris Dickinson, and Mary Lou Dickinson Swanson.
The family wishes to thank The Groves for offering Marcia excellent care in her final years and to thank the Groves Hospice for making her final days as comfortable as possible.
Memorial contributions may be made in her memory to The Groves or to The Groves Hospice. Online condolences to www.speakschapel.com. Carson-Speaks Chapel is in charge of arrangements.