 "Photo: Courtesy photo")
USD alumni Marjorie Rawlins might have lived in California for 67 years, but over the years donated 10 million dollars to USD and the National Music Museum, creating a legacy that outlived her time in Vermillion and will be honored even after her death, Ted Muenster of the USD Foundation said.
Marjorie Rawlins died May 19 and will be honored at a public memorial service Friday for many years of generosity to her alma mater, USD.
The service will be held at the Colton Recital Hall, in the Warren M. Lee Fine Arts Center, at 4 p.m. It will include a musical tribute to her from members of the Rawlins Piano Trio, which she helped found, and Professor Susanne Skyrm on the piano, as well as remarks from USD President James Abbott and Director of the National Music Museum Andre Larson.
“She loved it in California but she never forgot where she came from,” Muenster said.
Over the years, Marjorie and Robert Rawlins donated 10 million dollars to USD and the National Music Museum, money which was used to fund scholarships, create the Rawlins Piano Trio, and raise the National Music Museum to international status, Muenster said.
Marjorie Rawlins founded a scholarship for the top students from the 14 largest South Dakota high schools to attend USD, regardless of their major, as well as an endowment for music students in the name of her longtime USD piano professor, Genevieve Truran.
“She had a lot to do with bringing quality students here,” Muenster said. “Our main interest at this point is that the campus community knows the significance and remembers what she’s done.”
Marjorie Rawlins grew up in Vermillion, graduated from Vermillion High School in 1938 and attended USD to study music. She was also President of Pi Beta Phi, and while at USD met her future husband, Robert Rawlins, Larson said.
“They had a great partnership, Marge and Bob,” Larson said. “He was quite shy and she wasn’t shy at all. Between them, they made a great team.”
After graduating from USD in 1942, Marjorie Rawlins moved to California and married Robert, and they lived there for the rest of their lives. Robert worked for HP and was involved in the early development of GPS, bar coding and other information technologies, becoming one of HP’s early corporate executives, Larson said.
Their deep love of music made them both wish to give back to their communities, Larson said, and their charity centered around enhancing the musical cultures both in California, where they sponsored a musical quartet, and in Vermillion, where they made their many donations to USD and the National Music Museum.
One of the National Music Museum’s major instrument collections, the Witten-Rawlins Collection, was purchased with the assistance of the Rawlins, when the collection of extremely rare Armati stringed instruments was put up for sale by their original collector, Laurence Witten, Larson said. The Armatis taught Stradivarius, one of the most famous violin makers of all time and it was also with Marjorie’s help that the National Music Museum bought an extremely rare Stradivarius violin, Larson said.
“In terms of a global span, there is nothing else like it (the National Music Museum) in the world,” Muenster said. “Some German museums might have a greater depth of German instruments, but none with the scope of this one.”
It was Marjorie Rawlins who pushed for those additions and she was determined to see the National Music Museum get the very best instruments there were to have, Larson said.
“She was a very decisive woman,” Larson said. “She knew what she wanted and she would tell you what she thought. She wanted us to have the best Stradivari we could find.”
The Rawlins also provided the money for building the Townsley Courtyard just outside the Music Museum, named for Marjorie Rawlins’ parents. They returned to Vermillion for the dedication ceremony in 1987, but Marjorie Rawlins also made a point of coming back to Vermillion once a year to visit Truran, who lived alone in Vermillion, Larson said.
“She was a very sophisticated woman,” Larson said. “She grew up as sorority girls were supposed to, knowing the social graces, but she had a mind of her own. And we are all her children here.”
Reach reporter Sarah Paulus at Sarah.Paulus@usd.edu
Be the first to comment on this article!