Dr. John Leon Duling

DULING MCEWEN

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 4/20/2010 at 18:22:48

Woodbury County History 1984

Dr John Leon and Mary Dee (McEwen) Duling
By Dr John L Duling

John Leon Duling attended Cooper School, East Junior and East High Schools, Morningside College (studying piano and composition with Professor James Reistrup), University of Chicago, University of South Dakota (at Vermillion), The State University of Iowa (Iowa City) (studying composition, orchestration, and muicology with Dr P G Clapp), San Francisco State University, and The Univerity of California at Berkeley, receiving four degrees, the terminal degree being a PhD. His degrees were in Chemistry, Piano, Composition and Orchestration, and Administration/Psychology. It was while attending Morningside College that he met and married Mary Dee (McEwen) Duling, daughter of Dr Philip E McEwen, 1880-1974, a botonist and owner of a greenhouse, and Mildred (Dake) McEwen, 1899-1928, who died of anaemia shortly after the birth of Mary Dee, October 27, 1928. Mary Dee has two brothers: Alex McEwen, born 1920, and Thomas McEwen, born 1927, both living in Seattle, Washington and working in engineering and thistory at Boeing.

John and Mary Dee have raised three children: Rev John James Duling, born March 1, 1950, in Carroll, Iowa, presently Pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Washburn, Illinois, and working towards a PhD at a university in Illinois; Dyann Dee (Duling) McCurry, born April 25, 1951, in Sioux City, presently an elementary teacher in Calexico, California; and Julia Laree Duling, Administratiive Assistant in the Police Department, Sacramento, California. All three children have graduate degrees in their fields. Mary Dee completed her university education after the children were out on their own, attending the University of Alaska and San Diego State University. Everyone in the family was graduated with Honors and Distinction.

Mary Dee presently is teaching Grade IV in Patterson, California, a short distance from Turlock, where the Dr Dulings now abide. John taught for eight years at Woodrow Wilson Junior High School (and summers at Central High School) in Sioux City, before moving to San Francisco, where he taught at Lincoln High School for eleven years, becoming Supervisor of Music when he received his Doctorate at U.C. Berkeley in 1966. He also served as a visiting professor at Stanford University for several years. In 1968, the Dulings moved again to College, Alaska, where John served for several years as professor. (It was during this service tht John received recognition in the Mdarquis ‘Who’s Who’; he suggested several ways of implementing programs to keep secondary students in the bush, instead of flying them out to attend schools away from their families. One idea that is to this day implemented in many bush villages is: ‘To transport laboratories by sled, barge, etc, to bush villages on a temporary basis, enabling villages on a temporary basis, enabling students to learn valuable academic subjects, such as chemistry, physics, etc. Then the labs could be taken to another village on a temporary basis’.

However, Mary Dee got quite ill form the weather in Alaska, necessitating that the Dr Dulings move to desert climate. So, in 1970 the Dulings moved to El Centro, California, in the midst of the Imperial Valley Dessert, where John became a professor at the San Diego Campus until 1975, when he retired to spend full time managing the family estate. Rev John James, their son, stayed and completed one degree at the University of Alaska. From there, he attended San Anselmo Seminary and was ordained as a Pastor in the Presbyterian Synod in 1978. But the two girls joined their parents, moving to El Centro; Dyann has been there ever since, although John and Mary Dee moved to Turlock in 1975, and Julia moved to Sacramento in 1974.

Mary Dee is currently President of her QN Chapter of PEO sisterhood, former President of the Patterson Teachers’ Association, and Chairkperson of the Site Council at her school, Las Palmas. John Leon currently is doing research in composing music via computer, actually programming methods for assisting the composer to write music of all types. John is a member of the Church Council and Nazareth Lutheran Church in Turlock, where he and Mary Dee are loyal members of the chancel choir. John’s sacred compositions often are performed at this church, which has a fine organ and a very good choir.

‘Dr John’, as he is called by his friends, is a 32nd degree Mason and Shriner, like his son, Rev John, and is also a member of ODK and OMA, was accompanist to the Abu Bekr Shrine Chanters in Sioux City, 1951-58, Minister of Music at Trinity Lutheran Church in Sioux City, 1951-1954, recipient of Ford Fellowship, 1954-55, Choir Director at St Thomas Episcopal Church in Sioux City, 1955-58, Minister of Music at First United Presbyterian Church, San Francisco, California, 1959-1968, Director of the San Francisco Choral Society, 1959-68, and members of many other professional organizations. Some people may recall Dr Duling’s television program, ‘Fashions in Music With John Duling’, 1950-53, on KVTV.

The Dr Dulings have traveled throughout the world, taking their children with them. This has helped to bring about an increasingly informed basis for making decisions about living.