Marjorie P. Phillips of Chicago, a schoolteacher for more than 50 years, died of cardiac arrest Sunday, May 12, at her home. She was born Marjorie Pierce in Chicago. She learned the violin from her father and played in the orchestra at Hyde Park High School. She had wanted to be a pediatrician, her daughter Shirley Marshall said, but her mother steered her toward being a teacher. While studying at Crane Junior College, she met Charles Edward Phillips, who lived on her block, and the two married in 1928. She received a bachelor’s degree at Chicago Teachers College. She served as a social caseworker during the Depression before working her way into the Chicago Public Schools, at first as a substitute teacher, then as a full-time elementary school teacher. Her specialty was art class, where she most enjoyed watching pupils make progress, her daughter said. Early in the Depression, with her husband working only sporadically, the couple moved into the second floor of her parents’ house. After he found work as a mail carrier and postal clerk, they remained in the house to care for her parents. They raised three children there and moved in 1955, after 25 years in the house. Her husband died in 1967. She continued to teach in the Chicago Public Schools until she was 65, then spent nine years at St. Edmund’s School. In retirement she attended reunions and kept in touch with old students, among them author Leon Forrest. Survivors also include another daughter, Beverly Cook; a son, Charles; seven grandchildren; 10 great-grandchildren; and three great-great-grandchildren. Visitation will begin at 11 a.m. Friday, with services at noon, in Crerar Memorial Presbyterian Church, 8100 S. Calumet Ave., Chicago.
