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Biography
By Diane McManus
May 10, 2004
Marjorie
A. Breedis, a social worker, social activist, volunteer, and mother
of seven, died on May 6, 2004, at the Hospital of the University of
Pennsylvania.
Born on May 10, 1920, in Brooklyn, NY, daughter of
Albert and Margaret Andresen, she received her Bachelor’s degree at
St. Joseph’s College for Women in 1941, and began graduate study in
social work at Fordham University. Her first position in social work
was as a Medical Social Worker at Grasslands Hospital in Valhalla,
NY. From there, she moved on to St. Luke’s Hospital where she also
served as a medical social worker until her marriage in 1946 to Dr.
Richard G. McManus.
With Dr. McManus, Marjorie raised a family of
seven children through family moves from Lexington, Kentucky, to
Brooklyn, NY, to Boston, MA, to Pittsburgh, PA, where she spent most
of her years with Dr. McManus. In Pittsburgh, where her husband was
Chief of Pathology at West Penn Hospital, she became active in the
West Penn Hospital Guild, serving as President, and in the North
Hills Association for Racial Equality. “We learned from Mom and Dad
not just by what they said but by their example to respect people of
all races, religions, and nationalities,” her daughter, Diane
McManus, said. Both parents also demonstrated that “family” extended
to anyone in need, when they provided room and board to a young man
from Virginia, Robert Hunter, in need of a place to live to finish
high school and begin college.
Upon the death of Dr. McManus in 1965, Marjorie
resumed her career in social work in order to support her family.
Initially, she took a position as a medical social worker at
Harmarville Rehabilitation Center, near Pittsburgh. She then
returned to graduate school, earning her Master’s in Social Work
degree at the University of Pittsburgh in 1967. Following her
graduation, she served as Director of Foster Care, Transitional
Services of United Mental Health Services, Allegheny County.
During a trip to Atlantic City with her mother and
sister, Dorothy, she contacted an old friend whom she learned lived
in Philadelphia, Dr. Charles Breedis, then Professor of Pathology at
the University of Pennsylvania. Their friendship blossomed into
love, and they married in 1968. At that time, Marjorie and her
children moved to the Philadelphia area. After a few years as a
homemaker, she again returned to social work, first as a Juvenile
Probation Officer for Delaware County in Media, then at Catholic
Social Services. There, she moved through the ranks from case worker
to Supervisor to Administrator in the Single Parents Division before
retiring in 1987.
Widowed for the second time in 1981, she once
again showed strength, remaining active in her career, and also
traveling to Russia, China, the Galapagos Islands, and Europe. And
once more she demonstrated that she was the parent not only of her
own children but of any who needed her, when she sponsored Joy Kong
to come from Korea and live with her while attending school.
Following her retirement as a social worker, she
pursued another longtime dream and obtained her real estate license
at Temple University’s Real Estate Institute.
Despite a busy schedule as wife, mother, and
social worker, Marjorie also dedicated herself to such causes as
supporting political candidates she admired, preparing and serving
food at local homeless shelters, and taking a leadership role in
promoting fair housing and racial equality. She enthusiastically
supported Bob Edgar, longtime representative in Delaware County’s
seventh district, and Jimmy Carter, for whom she ran as a delegate
in the 1980 primary election. For Edgar, she hosted coffees and
wine-and-cheese parties, as well as working tirelessly for his
election and re-election. Besides the casseroles she prepared for
St. John’s Hospice, she spent her Tuesdays securing and buttering
bread to take to the Life Center of Eastern Delaware County, a
shelter and soup kitchen.
Long active in the Fair Housing Council of
Suburban Philadelphia, she became involved in testing to uncover
race discrimination in housing, as well as coordinating special
events and speakers, and served for several years as Corresponding
Secretary of the Fair Housing Council, taking special pride in
seeing the results of her work, as people found homes in
neighborhoods once inaccessible to them.
Finally, she also made time to enjoy her favorite
personal passions: oil painting and ballroom dancing. All through
her life, painting was a thread. Paintings from her teen years
survive even now. In Pittsburgh, her children accompanied her on
excursions to the riverside to skip stones while she painted
cityscapes. Years could pass between paintings—and then she would
return to her artwork, as she did while living at Lima Estates.
There she began painting classes, and when her health did not permit
attending these classes, she nevertheless continued to paint with a
group at Lima Estates.
She also enjoyed ballroom dancing, taking trips to
Florida and Mexico for competitions or at Academy of Social Dance
Showcase days, demonstrating her skills to family and friends. An
admirer of Fred Astaire, she also wanted to enjoy dancing at family
weddings. While she amassed trophies in her competitions, she was
modest about her achievements, saying she was the “only one” in her
age group and she was there to have a good time. But those who have
watched her dance saw in her the grace with which she lived.
Finally, as the grandchildren arrived, she was a
proud and attentive grandmother. She traveled to be with her
children and their newborns, taking their hand during their trips to
Disney World, patiently guiding them through Philadelphia Zoo and
Longwood Gardens visits, and sitting with them when their parents
traveled and showing what parenthood meant. Once asked by her son
Richard, “when do you stop worrying about your children?” she
responded, “I’ll let you know when I do.” Her daughter Pat reports
that even on her last day of life, facing a procedure that was to
take her life, she expressed concern that Pat “should be sitting,”
because of her recent surgery.
Marjorie will be dearly missed by her children,
Richard (Cindy) McManus, Liz (Jonny) Meister, and Diane McManus,
Patricia McManus, Stephen (Janice) McManus, Peter McManus, and Jack
(Debra Mason) McManus; her brother Albert (Dorothy) Andresen; 16
grandchildren, Sara, Caitlin, Aimee, and Rebecca McManus; Tammy,
Blake, Travis, and Zachary Meister; Kevin and Darcy Bacha; David,
Kate, and Kelly McManus; and Ian, Rose, and Camille McManus; foster
daughter Joy Kong; and many nieces and nephews.
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