Marjorie Violet Schwicker

Marjorie Violet "Vi" Schwicker April 1st 1919 – January 22, 2015 Vi Schwicker passed from this world on January 22 at The Hermitage, in Dillsboro, North Carolina of complications of old age, after a twenty-year residence in the Great Smoky Mountains. The second of three children of German and English parents, she was raised on a strawberry farm in a small town on The Finger Lakes in upstate New York. As a child she learned literary appreciation and piano from her mother, diligence and attention to detail from her father, and the American agrarian work ethic from both. She and her older sister often road the family's work horses to school in winter, and both worked the fields in summer. Vi graduated from State University at New York, "Geneseo," with a teacher's degree in 1939. She was hired to teach "gifted children" in the school system at Seaford, Long Island, New York, where she met her husband, William Schwicker, Jr. They were married in the summer of 1941, soon moving two years later to Ft. Belvoir, VA where Vi was a battalion commander's secretary. She returned to Seaford and gave birth to a son, William III, in 1944 while her husband served two years as a platoon leader in the construction of the Ledo Road across northern Burma. After the war the family settled on Long Island, but wanderlust overtook them. They made a chancy move to the Florida Keys, arriving in 1960, three months after Hurricane Donna. They settled on Big Pine Key and Vi immediately began teaching fourth grade at the Sue M. Moore School in Marathon. Two years later she switched to the Truman Avenue School in Key West, and later to Sugarloaf Elementary in it's inaugural year. She taught at Sugarloaf, where she enjoyed being handed the most difficult children, until retirement in the late '70's. Vi was a fine and loyal wife, a strict and loving mother, and an excellent schoolteacher, as many older residents today can testify. She often said teaching fourth grade was not difficult, "you have to make rules, give the kids expectations, listen to their questions, and answer them." Vi was an accomplished organist, playing at First Baptist, Sylva, North Carolina, until age 90. Many Key Westers will remember her at the Old Stone Methodist Church playing the great pipe organ on Sundays, and from 1982 to '94 (with director Joe Wilt), the annual Christmas presentation of Handel's "Messiah," a packed event attended by a complete cross-section of Key West populace. It was her favorite piece. Husband Bill predeceased her in 2004, but the thirty-five years they spent together on Big Pine, and later Lower Sugarloaf, she often called "the happiest days of our lives." She was a true honorary Key Wester, who loved the backcountry from Snipe Point through Content Keys, forever amazed by the clarity and beauty those waters and islands. She is survived by her son, William, (Capt. Billy), of Dillsboro, who fondly looked after her until the end. He thanks the staff at The Hermitage for their compassionate, professional dedication. . .