Margaret "Peggy" Ann (Johnson) Woodcock

Margaret "Peggy" Ann (Johnson) Woodcock passed away Friday, June 9th, at IU Hospice House, surrounded by her three children. With a similar courage displayed by her father (Harold Ray Johnson, Jr.) when he served in WWII, Peggy valiantly battled thymic cancer for two full years, rewarding her loved ones with every precious second they could spend together. It's this time with family that most defined - and delighted - her life. The family now honoring her memory are her children, Jaime Vermillion, Rob Bola, Stephen Andrew Bola (Chiharu), her stepchildren Stephen Ames (Lana) and Alison Woodcock (Michael), as well as a group of wonderful grandchildren, Sarah, Rick, Louis, and Rae Bola-Tsakakura, Amelia, Anna, and Thomas Vermillion, Stella Ames, Eva Bransfield, Sage, Oliver, and Sylvan Hutchens. Peggy was born November 6, 1943, in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and subsequently moved to Indiana, where she lived every year thereafter. Growing up in Goshen (and then South Bend), a self-proclaimed "goody-two shoes", she remembered childhood as a happy one, full of visits to her Grandfather's pharmacy, sock hop school dances, and a love for odd jobs (which included such humorous stints as bird-sitting, going door-to-door with Christmas cards, and selling department-store lingerie and hosiery to embarrassed husbands). Peggy went to Indiana University in 1962 to pursue a BA in Fine Arts - not the typical path for the daughter of an engineer! - but it was this love for creative artistic endeavors that shaped much of her life. After her divorce with her first husband, Stephen Bola, she returned to Bloomington in 1982 with their three children, where she impressively attained an MFA in Creative Writing, even workshopping with the renowned short story writer, Raymond Carver, who spoke nicely of her work. For her thesis, Peggy completed a novella entitled "Portrait of Magda", a book she looked back on with great pride in her later years. While establishing multiple careers for the University after getting her Masters, Peggy instilled in her children a love for culture and the arts, navigating the world with extended stays in places like Florence, Italy and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (no easy task with three young children in the days before the Internet made traveling easier). She enthusiastically supported and encouraged her children to chase all of their dreams, which resulted in her daughter dancing ballet in Montreal for many years, her oldest son achieving a career of film and television in Los Angeles, and her youngest son raising a family in Fukui, Japan while teaching and writing about the local culture of his new city. Peggy married her second husband in 1990, an award-winning English professor at Indiana University, John Woodcock, and they spent the next 32 years together, devoted to one another until his passing from cancer in 2022. As a couple, they visited over twelve countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa (even being present during the Arab Spring in Egypt as it captivated the world's attention). They took pictures everywhere they went, both here and abroad, and became renowned as local photographers of great talent, often exhibiting in shows and selling prints to fans of their work. Together, they also shared a love for gardening in their backyard, literature, crossword puzzles, visiting their favorite restaurants in town, and their many cats over the years. One thing Peggy was most proud of in her life was facing the inherited mental health challenges that sadly took the life of her dear mother, Twanette Pearl Blender Johnson. Peggy aimed to break the stereotype of shame that surrounded these issues in previous decades, so she confronted the subject with the same courage, candor, wisdom, and bravery that she exhibited while facing cancer. This strength of character allowed her to keep fighting, all her life, so that she could continue to spend one day after another with those she loved. The days have sadly run out, but the memories have not. There is no way to encapsulate the life of Margaret Ann Johnson Woodcock into a few small paragraphs. She was a woman capable of the deepest love for others, and someone more-than deserving of that same admiration. Her loyalty was unyielding, her sacrifices innumerable. She didn't look back with regret on career paths not taken or adventures unpursued. Life, to her, was about love. Her life has passed, but the love she created, and the love remembered in her name, never will. A visitation will be held Wednesday, June 14, from 5-8 p.m. at Day & Deremiah-Frye Funeral Home for friends and family to pay their respects.