Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 26, 1990 TAG: 9004260722
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B2 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
She had retired in 1972 after teaching at William Fleming for 28 years and at the old Lee Junior High School for two years before that.
Fleming's Dickinson Hall is named in her honor.
Dickinson was Roanoke's mother of the year for arts and sciences in 1968. She was a founder of both the old Patchwork Players and the Showtimers, the valley's community theaters, and she was active in Democratic politics.
She was known as a teacher of English, speech and drama, but she denied that was true. "I teach Johnny and Mary," she said in a newspaper interview near the end of her career, emphasizing that she worked with students rather than with subjects.
Dickinson called teaching "my religion. Teachers must be dedicated, and most of them are. But the subject must not get between the teacher and the child."
Generations of Dickinson's students won awards in state and regional competitions in speech and drama.
Her own honors included the medal of the National Freedom Foundation and listing in "Who's Who of the American Theater" and "Two Thousand Women of Achievement." The latter, published in London, included women throughout the world.
She served as president of the Virginia Speech and Drama Association, a director of Barter Theater, a high school representative on the Council of the American National Theater Academy and a member of the International Platform Association and the National Thespian Society.
The 1959 Fleming yearbook was dedicated to Dickinson and, when she retired, Roanoke City Council declared her a member emeritus of that body.
Dickinson was born Genevieve Giesen in Roanoke. Her father was an auditor for the Norfolk and Western Railway and her mother was an artist.
She grew up on her grandfather's farm in Craig County and attended high school at New Castle.
Dickinson graduated at the age of 19 from Radford University, which named her its outstanding alumnus in 1973, and earned her master's degree at Virginia Tech. She took post-graduate studies at universities in Virginia, Boston and New York.
Her teaching career began at Bluefield, Va., and she moved back to Roanoke to teach at Lee Junior. She married Nelson Dickinson, assistant advertising manager of the Norfolk and Western, who died in 1947 at the age of 41.
Dickinson began her involvement in politics and the theater soon after her arrival in Roanoke.
She was elected the national committeewoman from Virginia at the 1944 Democratic convention in Chicago that nominated Franklin Roosevelt for a fourth term. After her retirement from teaching, she was chosen as a delegate to the 1980 Democratic convention that nominated Jimmy Carter for re-election.
She had also served as president of the Roanoke Democratic Club.
Active in efforts to establish a little theater group, Dickinson directed, acted in and wrote plays. Her first effort, titled "Barriers," received a silver trophy in a play tournament.
A life member of the Showtimers, Dickinson directed one or more plays for more than 20 seasons. As an actress, she said, her favorite roles were Constance in "The Madwoman of Chaillot," Mrs. Danvers in "Rebecca" and Mrs. Duke in "The Happiest Millionaire."
Under her direction, students at Fleming won a national competition at Purdue University in 1958 for their production of "Dark of the Moon."
One of her pleasures, she told an interviewer, was to follow the successes of her students, especially those who worked in fields related to speech and drama.
The highlights of her career, Dickinson said, came "just before the curtain goes up on any show, just before the prayer we always have with the cast at William Fleming, winning the award trophy for the school's one-act play, and the last thing we did."
Even after her retirement, Dickinson continued to coach private school students in speech and drama.
In recent years, she had moved from her home on Clarendon Avenue Northwest to Friendship Manor.
Surviving is a daughter, Jeanne Dickinson of Los Angeles.
Arrangements are being handled by Oakey's Funeral Home, Roanoke. A memorial service will be held at Oakey's Roanoke Chapel at 1 p.m. Sunday.
by CNB