Remembering Margaret Johnson

Michael Burke, Dominic Riley & Margaret Jackson

It is with sadness that we report the death of our long-term friend, colleague and champion of bookbinding, Margaret Johnson, who has died at the age of 101 at the Heritage on the Marina retirement home in San Francisco. It is not surprising that such a long life had many chapters, from her early years in a Quaker family in New Jersey, to her war-time wedding to Duncan, the raising of her three children, her many homes all across the country, including an amazing epic journey with the three children packed into a VW convertible bug as they travelled to relocate in California, following Duncan as his career progressed.

At a recent lunch, Margaret, who always loved to recount her adventures across her American century, gave me a print-out of every address she had lived in so far. It was an impressive list, and she talked us through each one. Knowing that the Heritage was certainly to be her last address (and what an address it was) was an especially poignant moment for us all.

Others will I’m sure recall their memories of Margaret from earlier times, but mine began in 1992,when she came to live in the Bay Area for a third time in her life, after the early death of Duncan, to be nearer to her daughter Elizabeth (Lisa), son-in-law Tom, and grandson Nick. Her other daughter Anne was in New York, and son Tom in Los Angeles.

As soon as Margaret arrived in San Francisco, she plunged herself into the bookbinding community here. She joined the board of the Hand Bookbinders of California, playing many roles, including secretary and editor of the newsletter, Gold Leaf. Others will remember that for many years she edited the Guild of Bookworkers’ newsletter, working closely with typesetter Richard Siebert. She was also an active and supportive member of the Colophon Club, the Book Club of California, and for some years worked as a volunteer at the San Francisco Arboretum with her life-long friend, Jane Aaron, whom she loved dearly. Also back East, Margaret had studied with Laura Young in New York, and volunteered at the Pennsylvania Hospital Historic Library in Philadelphia.

Margaret was not just a volunteer, though. For many years in San Francisco, she practiced book restoration, first from her apartment on Cabrillo street in the Richmond district, then at her next home on Pine Street closer to town, and finally in her second-to-last home near the Embarcadero, she maintained a much smaller workshop because she loved the craft and didn’t want to stop doing it.

One got the feeling that over her decades-long involvement in the bookbinding world Margaret had simply met everyone. She had, of course, and many became life-long friends. But whilst she counted these luminaries as friends, she remained characteristically modest about her own contribution to the craft. And she never stopped learning, attending many workshops put on by HBC, and at the Center for the Book, and of course she never missed a GBW Seminar. The gathering in 2009 was held in San Francisco, where Margaret, Judy Houghteling and Sandy Good were exemplary local hosts. That was a great party.

I think she had attended bookbinding conferences in the UK before we met her (DB’s New Horizons in Oxford in 1984 for instance) but it was in 2003 that she began coming every two years to the the Society of Bookbinders Conference. This was advantageous for me and Michael because it became the spur for us to organise a post-conference holiday for all the overseas visitors. These included Hedi Kyle, Tini Miura, Don Glaister, Carol Barton, Gary Frost, Jim Canary, Sabina Nies, Cathy Adleman, Judy Houghteling, Yehuda Miklaf, Don Etherington, Monique Lallier, Coleen Curry, Cali Anderson, Lang Ingalls and Daniel Kelm.

These holidays were either in our crampt house in the Lake District or in a rented medieval Manor House in South Wales, which everyone loved. We had day trips and meals together in the evening, where everyone cooked, laid the table or tended the fire. This was a perfect way of extending the camaraderie of the conference, allowing us to see interesting parts of the British landscape, and more importantly, a way of being together with our gang for a bit longer. Perfect. Margaret loved these get-togethers, as she was such a social person. Back in San Francisco, she hosted many dinners, sometimes just with a few friends round the table, sometimes large pot-luck parties for visiting teachers. All were invited. A few years ago, Margaret announced at dinner, “I’ve decided to shoot for a hundred.” She made it, of course, and held yet another party for that occasion that many bookbinders attended.

At the Guild Seminar in Portland in 2005, Margaret was presented with the Laura Young award for lifetime services to the Guild. This was fitting, as it was with Laura Young that her career as a bookbinder really began forty years earlier. In his remarks, Guild president James Reid-Cunningham noted that his daughter had recently met Margaret, and said to him, “When I’m old, I want to be just like Margaret.” A sentiment, perhaps, shared by many of us. She lived life well.

Margaret commissioned two bindings from me. One was her grandson Ben’s dissertation, the other was a book about San Francisco by the Grabhorn Press from 1936. The cover depicts the famous landmarks of the City. The commission was odd though. She offered to pay me $1,000, but wanted me to make a $2,000 binding. I was puzzled, not to say slightly irked, but when Margaret explained, the reason was clear. Since we were both transplants to this beautiful city, and had long benefitted from the generosity of SF Public Library Special Collections, the binding was to be a gift from the two of us to the library and the City that we loved. This was an inspired idea, so typical of a friend who, through a modest gesture, made a small statement about our home town and its legacy of fine bookmaking.

One time at a gathering, a young bookbinder asked me, “How do you go about acquiring tools?” And I replied, “Make friends with old bookbinders.” Margaret heckled from the back of the room, “Is that why you got to know me?” Laughter of course. But also maybe partly true, as we now have her Cook ’n Stir. Thanks Margaret, not only for that, but for thirty five years of showing us how to live well and appreciate the really important things in life: good food, good wine, good books and good friends.

- Dominic Riley