Marilyn V. Hopping

March 26, 1935 - August 4, 2023

Marilyn Virginia Kerns Hopping, 88, passed away on August 4, 2023, in the comfort of home and care of family.

She was born, at home, to Edward and Marguerite Kerns at the nadir of the Great Depression, a perfectly healthy and robust baby, as she loved to point out. She had a strong, independent, creative nature and a sense of adventure that carried her through life with remarkable resilience.

Marilyn met her future husband of 64 years, Bill Hopping, when they were kids living across a schoolyard from each other in Detroit. As the story goes, young Marilyn was climbing a telephone pole, and Bill spotted her up there, impressed by both her beauty and daring athleticism.

They married on October 3, 1958, and, in 1967, the young family of five moved from the west side of Detroit to a new home in the small town of Northville.

A graduate of Cass Technical High School and the Art Institute of Chicago, with degrees in fine arts and education, Marilyn landed a position teaching English and art at Northville High School. She later earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Michigan with a thesis about creative thinking and learning.

After retirement in 1991, Marilyn helped build her adobe-style dream house with a fully equipped art studio in Taos, New Mexico. Designed by her beloved older brother Bob, the house overlooked the sweeping Rio Grande Valley and included a balcony for enjoying and photographing the spectacular sunsets and wildlife.

Nicknamed “Rocky” for drawing and painting Maine’s craggy coastlines on a family vacation, Marilyn became an amateur geologist in New Mexico. She joined field expeditions with other intrepid enthusiasts, trekking up and down desert hills and mesas.

In her La Solana studio, she loved to draw and paint those southwestern landscapes and rock formations. She also fired pottery and abstract clay forms in her kiln and created mixed-media collages, including one exploring the toll of the Vietnam War on young soldiers. At New Mexico’s famous Ghost Ranch, she took classes in crafts and visual arts and then stepped in as teacher and mentor.

A New Mexico home base afforded Bill and Marilyn many opportunities to explore the West by road trip: national parks and monuments, the Lewis and Clark trail, a dude ranch in Wyoming, historic Old West towns, ancient cliff dwellings and villages, and ever more geologic formations to hike, paint, and photograph.

Also a road trip away was Dallas, where Marilyn and Bill took their three young grandchildren on frequent trips to zoos and museums. A natural and lifelong teacher, Marilyn showed them how to draw and create things and inspired them to keep learning by doing and tinkering.

Marilyn is survived by her husband Bill Hopping; her children Louise Hopping, Lorraine Hopping Egan (Chris), and William Hopping (Yolanda); and her grandchildren Irene Hopping (a zookeeper), Sophia Hopping (an artist), and Daniel Hopping (a software engineer). She was preceded in death by her parents and sister Dorothy Cook and brother Robert Kerns.

A Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday, September 30, 2023 at 2:30 p.m. in Ann Arbor. If you would like to attend please contact Lorri Hopping through the following link: https://www.hoppingfun.com/contact .

In lieu of flowers, donations are welcome to: Angela Hospice , which provided excellent care in Marilyn’s last months, 14100 Newburgh Road, Livonia, MI 48154; St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital , 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, TN 38105; or Michigan Humane , 30300 Telegraph Road, Suite 220, Bingham Farms, MI 48025.