Elizabeth Jean MacLaughlin

Elizabeth Jean Mayo MacLaughlin was born on October 29, 1944 in Tallahassee, Florida and passed away on October 27, 2020 at St. Ann’s Hospital, Westerville, Ohio. She is survived by her husband of 52 years, Lewis H. MacLaughlin III, and her son, L. Harte MacLaughlin MD and his wife Peggy, and her grandchildren, Kyle E. MacLaughlin, Claire E. MacLaughlin, and Catherine R. MacLaughlin, of Columbus; and by her brother, Dr. William T. Mayo, Jr., Ph.D., EE, Costa Mesa, CA and his children Taylor Mayo, Diane Mayo, and Sharon Mayo; and by her brother Nathan M. Mayo, D.D.S., Maitland, FL, and his daughter Melody Barton (Derek) DC, and granddaughter Cora E. Barton, and his son Clayton Mayo (Katye Shine); and by her brother Joseph B. Mayo, Prattville, AL and his partner Karen V. Lawler, and by his daughter Allecia Mayo, and grandchildren Anna, Alec, Austin and Alyssa; and by her cousins John M. Hodges, FL, and Susan Hodges Knutzen (Jim) Jacksonville, FL, their sons Josef Knutzen and Jess Knutzen, and by her aunt, Joan McLean (Bruce) , Kansas City MO, and her daughters Kathy Eisenbeis and Connie Caldwell. She is also survived by cousins Katherine Woodward and Mayo Woodward, and their father Robert Woodward. She is predeceased by her father, William T, “Billy” Mayo, former head of Florida Interstate Highways, Chairman, Florida Public Service Commission, and her Mother, Betty Blalock Mayo, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Florida State College for Women (later F.S.U.) in Chemistry, the first PBK chapter in Florida. This was at a time when few women went to college, much less majored in the sciences, and she worked in state labs before her marriage. She is also predeceased by her aunt, Theodosia “Teeny” Hodges, and her husband, H.M. Hodges; and by her parents Joseph “Daddy Joe” and Gladys Blalock; and by her cousin, Eleanor Gravely Woodward Fleming, and by her former sister-in-law, Mary Ann Jennings. Her paternal grandfather, Nathan Mayo, was a Florida Commissioner of Agriculture, who held the office for so long they named a building in Tallahassee for him. She is also survived by her husband’s sister-in-law, Elissa V. MacLaughlin, and her daughter Susan M. Rasche, her partner Eric Ford, granddaughters Margaret Rasche and Virginia (Terry) Lewis, great-granddaughter Alba J. Lewis; and by her daughter, Elizabeth Harmon (Jeff); and her son Jerome MacLaughlin (Margaret) and granddaughters Madeline MacLaughlin and Ella MacLaughlin; and by her husband’s cousin, Johannah D. Hall, and her son, Joseph Hall (Samara Parker), and a grandson Kai Parker-Hall. She is also survived by her sister-in-law, Sara M. Foster (Cameron) and her sons William Foster and Robert Foster, and her daughter Catherine Franssen (Scott) and her grandchildren Matthew Franssen (Katie) and Sara F. Wilder (Blake), and great-grandchild Abigail Wilder. She is also survived by her dear friends Roseanne Rini and Patrick Mullen, a fellow folklorist, Columbus; and by Beth Melton Lorca, Spain. She is predeceased by her brother-in-law William Harte MacLaughlin, D.D.S., and her mother-in-law Hermine Harte MacLaughlin. Jean graduated from Leon High School in 1962, where she excelled in Spanish and Debate, and after winning an Angier Biddle Duke scholarship, went to Duke for her A.B. in Spanish, with a minor in English. There she was a member of Kappa Delta Sorority, and as a gifted Musician of voice and piano, was a member of the Glee Club, Chancil Singers, Magrigal Choir, and sang the role of Gretel in the opera “Hansel and Gretel”. She was also President of Sigma Delta Pi, the National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society. She went on to receive a Ph.D. in Folklore, Latin America Studies and Anthropology from Indiana University in 1978. Her dissertation was titled “Peru’s Urban Migrant Children Learn Folktales: Developmental Acquisition of Narrative Skill in a Quechua-Migrant Squatter Settlement in Arequipa”. She and her husband lived in this barrio without running water or electricity in 1971-72, while she collected children’s folktales, jokes, legends, and songs, both in Spanish and Quechua (the language of the Incas). She also taught English in the local school, and helped neighbors out with meds, vitamins, and taught a course at Universidad Catolica in Lima. Her research confirmed the work of the French Psychologist, Piaget, with regard to the ages at which children gain narrative skills, and she also found these skills ran in families, this, in a neighborhood with few TV’s, where people made their own entertainment. Her study was made possible through a Foreign Area Fellowship, funded by the Ford Foundation. In addition her other scholastic honors include a National Defense Foreign Language Fellowship (Quechua), a Woodrow Wilson Semifinalist, and a National Merit Commanded Scholar. Her interest in Latin America was helped by the Girl Scouts of USA, who chose Jean to travel to Cuernavaca and Mexico City in 1962 for a cultural exchange conference, next with their GSUSA Experiment in International Living in Argentina in 1964, first in Buenos Aires and then up to a work project building a school in Salta in the high Andes. She and her husband first travelled to Peru in the summer of 1968 on a summer linguistics program Plan de Formento Linguistico through San Marcos University under supervision of her dissertation advisor, Dr. Wolfgang Wolck, an expert in Andean linguistics and bi lingualism. The project was based in Ayacucho, a poor and remote province in the 1980’s to become the birthplace of the Sendero Luminosa Maoist rebels, and the work involved significant hiking in rural villages and farms. After receiving her Ph.D. Jean was an Associate Professor at The Ohio State University in the Department of English from 1976 to 1981. She had published several of her collected tales in Folktales Told Around The World and presented numerous papers, including “That Ain’t No Lady….Ladylike Behavior and the Women’s Movement as Depicted in Adolescent Humor, 1970-1979”, presented at the National Women’s Studies Assoc. Conference, May of 1980. In 1981-1982, she worked as a public folklorist for the Ohio Foundation for the Arts, soon to become the Ohio Arts Council, consulting and presenting during Hispanic Week at St. Stephens, the symposium on the play of Amish and Mennonite children, the workshop ”Appreciating Appalachia” sponsored by the Columbus Board of Education Multicultural Education, also assisting fellow folklorist Timothy Lloyd, OAC Director, to develop the Dayton Arts Festival. In 1982-83, Jean decided on a new career as a computer programmer, taking course work at OSU and teaching herself C and dBase II & III. She became chief programmer for GLC Systems, and with its owner, Henry Z. Schwartz, formed Cablesoft, Inc. in 1984. There she designed the Traffic System in dbase III for Time-Warner, for scheduling, billing, and customer support, as well as court-appointment and subpoena tracking system for the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, her husband’s Law Practice accounting programs, and many programs for numerous businesses. In 1986, she founded Athena Software, where as President/Owner, she continued to develop her computer and programming expertise. After retirement in 2007, Jean like to read the Columbus Dispatch cover-to-cover with morning coffee while WOSU played classical music, doing the Sudoko and crosswords to keep her mind sharp, watching Downtown Abbey on PBS and following her stocks. The outings she enjoyed most were those for all three of her grandchildren’s concerts, through the excellent music instruction programs at Upper Arlington Schools, and the Irish Dance recitals of her granddaughters at the Academy Dance Studio. Jean was always about expanding one’s horizons and increasing our understanding of life, especially through education and hard work. She thanks all of her family and the many friends she made through teaching, through involvement with her son’s school activities, Clintonville neighbors, the Staff at Friendship Village of Columbus Health Center and those she met in her business career. She had conquered the lymphoma found in February 2020 with her expert Oncologist Dr. Andrew Grainger, but the chemotherapy left her weak and without appetite. The COVID19 restrictions made visiting and communications difficult, and intubations affected her ability to converse on the phone. She requested the poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye that begins “Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there” be read at a Memorial Service, and this will be held at a later date. Donations in lieu of flowers may be made to her beloved OSU, to Girl Scouts of USA, to the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers who work in education and development among the Quechua and Aymara, to the American Cancer Society, or a charity of one’s choice.

Elizabeth Jean MacLaughlin

October 29, 1944 - October 27, 2020