Marjorie Pepper  97 years old Sept. 27,1924- May 24, 2022

Marjorie Wilhelmina Pepper was born to Joseph and Agneta Hofmann on September 27, 1924. Her parents owned a bakery in Chicago, her father doing the baking and her mother working behind the counter.  Her parents, and her only sibling, an older brother, Henry Hofmann, preceded her in death.

As a young girl, Marjorie would take the streetcar to school by herself. She was given streetcar fare, but would often walk instead, spending the fare on candy. She went to high school in Chicago and in Evanston, Illinois. She proudly played the clarinet in the marching band.

She was a great dancer as a young woman, dancing to the bands of the day in ballrooms of Chicago.

She met a sailor, Richard Lyman, at a USO dance and married him in April of 1945.

They had seven children, Michael Lyman, Thomas Lyman, Janice Staples (John), Paul Lyman (Ginny), Claudia Marren (Thomas), Philip Lyman (Leighta Johnson) and Robert Lyman. She is survived by these seven, two beloved step-grandchildren: Allison and Brent Duffy, and fifteen grandchildren: Sarah Matanah, Emily Miller, Alice Severson, David Staples, Alexander Staples, Elisabeth Lyman, Eric Lyman, Wendy Lyman-Buttler, Melissa Lyman, Nathan Lyman, Marcus Lyman, Matthew Lyman, Brittany Grey, Megan Lyman, Thomas Marren, Marjorie Marren, 21 great-grandchildren and 3 great-great-grandchildren.

In later years she met and married Everett Pepper. They had almost 22 years together until his death in 2008, and she never stopped mourning him. They wintered in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, and spent the summers together in a cabin in the Northwoods, near Rhinelander, Wisconsin.

Marjorie loved to make huge family dinners - often traditional German foods. She liked to travel, write poetry, knit, take classes from the university by mail, garden, play Scrabble, and enjoyed card games. However most of all she loved holding, loving, and bragging about a new child or grandchild.

She was an enthusiastic poet giving readings in the US and on several occasions in foreign countries.  She loved nature and that was often her inspiration. Here is a poem she published many years ago in a local newspaper to express her grief over the cutting of shade trees near the street where she lived:

Tall poles and wires, electricity, bare, stark

Against the sky.

Progress - the stark progress - not softened by

The beauty of the tree.

It took a hundred or more years to grow,

It took an hour to destroy.

Now I know

Progress means - cutting down trees.

Visitation will be held Saturday June 4, 2022 at Schmidt & Bartelt Funeral Home 121 S. Cross St. Oconomowoc from 10 am until time of service at 12 pm. Interment will be held at Newbold Memorial Cemetery in Newbold, WI on Monday June 6, 2022 at noon.

The sharing of memories can be viewed via Zoom.