Marianne Williams Tobias (1940-2023)

A former Crown Hill Foundation Board member and a member of the cemetery’s Board of Corporators, Marianne Williams Tobias — an accomplished concert pianist — is best remembered for her writing on music. Beginning in 1986, she served for more than three decades as the musicologist, pre-concert lecturer, and program annotator for the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. As a young musician, she won the annual Young Musicians Contest and performed as a pianist with the Orchestra in 1953 at the age of 12. “Classical music, for me, is a way of life,” she once said — a belief that led her to write Classical Music Without Fear: A Guide for General Audiences.

Growing up in Indianapolis, she attended the Orchard School and Tudor Hall. She graduated from Radcliffe College (now part of Harvard University) in 1962 and from the Longy School of Music, later earning both master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Minnesota. A lifelong learner, she also pursued studies at Oxford, the Sorbonne in Paris, in Germany, and at Indiana University. In her 60s, she became a Certified Legal Translator of Spanish to English through the University of Chicago, and at 70 she became a certified Veterinary Technician, working for four years at the Cat Care Clinic in Indianapolis. Her monument includes a statue of her cat, Isabel, standing at the feet of an angel.

The boards on which she served and the causes she supported are too numerous to list. One especially close to her mission as an ambassador for music was the Marianne Tobias Music Program at Eskenazi Hospital. Beginning with her donation of a grand piano, the program at one time streamed more than 150 concerts a year — featuring music of all kinds — into the hospital’s 489 patient rooms.

“Solace lies at the heart of Crown Hill. In the middle of a large, noisy, bustling city, this unique institution stands proudly in its mission. The institution speaks quietly, respectfully, and powerfully of life’s final transition. With its natural beauty and its caring people, Crown Hill is a magical place with an elegant culture, the highest standards, and an enduring strength that seems to cleanse death of morbidity, offering hope, acceptance, and peace to all.” — Marianne Tobias, in her essay “Sanctuary,” included in the 2013 book Crown Hill: History|Spirit|Sanctuary.