Mary O. Johnson | Folk-dancing teacher, 91

Mary "Siggie" Ostroff Johnson, 91, formerly of Mount Airy, a folk-dancing teacher, died of cancer Monday at Keystone Hospice in Wyndmoor.

Mrs. Johnson was an original beatnik, her niece Penny Millson-Martula said, and became interested in folk music and dance in the 1950s. She was an early champion of civil rights and racial equality, her niece said. While folk dancing, she met Leonard Johnson, a truck driver. They married in 1969. He gave her the nickname Siggie, short for Sigmund Freud, because everyone was always asking her for advice.

The couple lived in Mount Airy and taught folk dancing at Drexel and Temple Universities, at International House, and on Tuesday nights in the summer on the patio outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

After her husband died in 1994, Mrs. Johnson lived with relatives in Texas and North Carolina. Every summer she returned home to volunteer at the Philadelphia Folk Festival in Schwenksville. She volunteered at the first festival in 1962. She celebrated her 91st birthday at the festival last August, her niece said, and was thrilled to get a hug from the singer Arlo Guthrie.

Mrs. Johnson grew up in Philadelphia. In her 20s she married Martin Ostroff, with whom she had two sons. The couple later divorced.

She is survived by sons Bernard and Joel Ostroff and six grandchildren.

A memorial service will be at 6 p.m. tomorrow at 105 Grayling Ave., Narberth.