Mary Margaret Erlanger
Mary Margaret Erlanger (nee Arnold), veteran, journalist, women’s rights advocate, and gerontologist, passed peacefully on March 16, 2022. She was 99.
Dr. Erlanger was born July 22, 1922 to David Arnold, a minister in Manhattan, Kansas, and J. Louise Arnold (nee Boone). She began her career as a journalist at Kansas State, where she edited the college newspaper and was a reporter for the Topeka State Journal. She served in Washington D.C. as a WAVE during World War II, where she coded dispatches and worked for Radio Washington. Following her service, she moved to New York City, where she worked as an editor for Collier’s and then in the offices of CBS Radio and CBS TV, where she worked with Edward R. Murrow. She married Michael Charles Erlanger, then president of BVD, in 1949. The two traveled widely for several years before settling in Redding, CT, where they raised their two children. In Redding, Dr. Erlanger became active in the League of Women Voters, eventually becoming president of the Connecticut State LWV. She subsequently served in the administration of Governor Ella Grasso, where she served on the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, the Governor’s Task Force on Construction Priorities, and a blue-ribbon commission investigating and ultimately reorganizing nursing home regulations for the state. Dr. Erlanger’s work in nursing homes led to her interest in gerontology. In 1980, she moved to Athens, GA, where she earned a doctorate in counseling from the University of Georgia. There, she maintained a private practice in counseling for 20 years and served on the Athens Community Council on Aging, before moving back to Redding, establishing residence at Meadow Ridge, where she continued to counsel her peers for many years.
In addition to her passion for work helping others, Dr. Erlanger was a passionate lover of the theater, opera, ballet, art, and literature. She boasted that she saw “everything” on Broadway during her years in New York, and she traveled extensively to experience and enjoy other cultures. During her years in Georgia, she served on the Board of the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art. Dr. Erlanger’s greatest passion, though, was people. She collected friends wherever she went, and maintained those friendships effortlessly. In her later years, she still had close friends from high school, and a group of peers, born in 1922, who celebrated their 50th, 60th, 70th, 80th, and 90th birthdays together. Dr. Erlanger was equally at ease with old and young, and served as a role model for many whose lives she touched. When asked how she would like to be remembered, she said: “She loved her family and her friends. She embraced life.”
Dr. Erlanger is survived her daughter Amy Folkman of Redding, CT, and son David Erlanger and daughter-in-law Jean Witter of New York City; grandchildren Katie Folkman Askew of Asheville, NC, Caroline Folkman of Westminster, CO, and Aaron Erlanger of New York City; and two great-grandchildren Thomas Askew and Emma Askew of Asheville, NC. Memorial services will be announced shortly.
Dr. Erlanger asked that contributions on her behalf be directed to the Mark Twain Library, the Redding Land Trust, the Athens Council on Aging, the Georgia Museum of Art, or the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Athens, Georgia.
To offer online condolences please visit: www.boutonfuneralhome.com