John Michener

1925 - 2018

John Harold Michener age 92 passed away on Saturday February 17 2018 at Broadmead a Quaker-guided continuing care retirement community in Hunt Valley Maryland. John was born in Wichita Kansas on October 6 1925 the third of four children of Anna Jane Baker and John Morrison Michener. He married Ann Crabtree daughter of Floretta Clark and James Russell Crabtree of Wichita in 1945 and obtained a Ph.D. in political science from Berkeley and a J.D from Maryland. A life-long Quaker he served as a conscientious objector and at Berkeley was fired for refusing to take a loyalty oath. He went on to leadership roles with the federal government serving in the office of the Surgeon General the Social Security Administration and Health Education and Welfare where he helped establish the legal basis for the Medicare program. He also was active in state roles serving as director of programs of both the Maryland government and the Maryland Bar Association for those who needed volunteer lawyers. John and Ann were both deeply committed to civil rights. When public schools in Prince Edward County Virginia were closed to prevent integration they welcomed Howard Smith into their home so he could complete his senior year of high school. Having witnessed the treatment of those in marginalized neighborhoods in Baltimore fair housing was always near and dear to John's heart and he was active in the Windsor Hills Neighborhood Association National Neighbors Association and Citizens Planning & Housing Association serving as President of each as well as being a community representative on Baltimore's zoning committee. He was also active with the Stony Run Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) for more than four decades including serving as clerk and also served as vice chair of the American Friends Service Committee. He helped found and launch Broadmead where he later served in many leadership roles including Chairman of the Board of Directors. Few things gave him more pleasure than travel and he largely fulfilled his life's ambition of driving on every major road that he could reach including extended family car trips to Alaska the Northwest Territories Newfoundland and south to Panama. He often travelled with a minimum of maps trusting that way would be found. It always was leaving behind a litany of stories that he would delight in telling in which near-disasters with family members were key elements. Ann passed away in 2008 after 63 years of marriage and he was fortunate to find another love-match in Jane Marie Brown daughter of James Lee Brown and Marguerite F. Brown and the surviving partner of Nancy B. Gryer. Jane and John married in 2010. He is survived by Jane; three sons John Russell of Seattle WA James Lloyd of Chapel Hill NC David Charles of Ann Arbor MI and a daughter Josephine of Cary NC; seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. A Memorial Meeting for Worship will be held at Baltimore Monthly Meeting of Friends Stony Run Baltimore MD at 2 PM on Saturday March 31 2018.