Marion L. Steinmann

As a writer and associate editor at the original, weekly Life magazine and freelance writer of books and articles in health care and medicine, Marion Lucille Steinmann, who died April 6 at 92 in Philadelphia, was a distinguished journalist. Born in 1929, she grew up in Rochester, NY, the daughter of Lucille Coller Steinmann and Edwin Oliver Steinmann. She attended West High School where she excelled academically and was editor of the school newspaper, The Occident News. Marion Steinmann went on to Cornell University as one of the first groups of National Scholars, a program that provided funding for both tuition and room and board. Continuing her journalism interest, she was on the staff of The Cornell Daily Sun. She was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. After graduation with a BS from Cornell University's College of Agriculture in 1950, Marion Steinmann joined the original Life Magazine as a reporter in the Science Department. In 1963, she was promoted to writer and assistant editor, and later to associate editor, writing about science and medicine. She authored a book, Island Life, published by Time-Life Films. She continued at Life Magazine until the weekly publication closed in 1972. A long-time New Yorker, in 1979 Marion Steinmann married Charles A. Joiner, PhD, chairman of the Political Science Department at Temple University and moved to Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia. Dr Joiner preceded her in death on March 7, 2015. They were both active in the Philadelphia Cricket Club, The Science and Art Club of Germantown, and the Chestnut Hill Community Association. After Life Magazine closed, she continued her involvement with health care and medicine as a freelance writer. She authored The American Medical Association Book of BackCare and two books with the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Guide to Common Childhood Infections and A Parent's Guide to Allergies and Asthma. She also wrote articles published in The New York Times Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, Smithsonian, The Cornell Alumni News, and other magazines. She became challenged by a myth that women in the 1950s were primarily stay-at-home housewives and mothers. To counter this myth, Marion Steinmann surveyed the women in her class of 1950 from Cornell University. She found that in the 1950s, 44% of the women from her class worked or went to graduate school for five years or more. In their lifetimes, 71% of the women worked 20 years or more, primarily in professional fields. She published her findings in a book, Women at Work: Demolishing a Myth of the 1950's. As the Cornell class of 1950 prepared to celebrate its 65th reunion in 2015, she was coeditor of the book, Curfews, Chaos, and Champions, by Brad Edmonson. It is the unique story of the class, which was the first normal class after World War II. Distributed to alumni of the class, the book documents, through personal stories by alumni and faculty, the challenging postwar years when enrollment grew substantially as veterans enrolled under the GI bill. The book has been revised for a more general audience under the title, Postwar Cornell, subtitled How the Greatest Generation Transformed a University, 1944-1952. Active in Cornell affairs, Marion Steinmann was co-correspondent of the class column in the Cornell Alumni Magazine from 2005 until she suffered a stroke in 2015. She was also vice-president of the class of 1950. Since 2015, she has been a resident of Cathedral Village and Bishop White Lodge in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. Marion Steinmann is survived by her sister, Elinor Steinmann Schrader of Santa Fe, NM, a nephew, Michael C. Schrader, MD, PhD, of San Francisco, a niece, Katherine E. Schrader of Salem, Mass, and grandnephews, Daniel and Adam Schrader. Interment will be at Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York.