John Plummer passed away at the age of 99 on September 24 th , 2019,
at his home in Tucson AZ.
He was born on December 15, 1919 in Rochester MN, the
son of Corena Popple Plummer and William Albert Plummer, physician at the Mayo
Clinic, and was nephew of renowned Mayo physician Henry Stanley Plummer. He
graduated from Carleton College in 1941, and served in World War II as a decorated
Lieutenant in the Navy, participating in many invasions including D-Day. He married
Charlotte Griswold Wing of Evanston IL in 1944. After receiving a PhD at Columbia
University, he was Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at the Pierpont
Morgan Library in New York City, where he mounted several groundbreaking
exhibitions, and was a professor of art history at Columbia University, Harvard College,
and Princeton University. His lifelong passion was drawing and painting, and he shared
a studio with his wife Charlotte, also an artist who died in 2002.
The beloved patriarch of his family, he is survived by two children, son Henry Sheppard Plummer and daughter Barbara Plummer Jasinski, and his daughter-in-law Patty Graffius Plummer. He is also survived by four grandchildren: Christopher Plummer, Sarah Jasinski, David Jasinski, and Emily Jasinski Beaudoin and her husband Matthew Beaudoin, three great grandchildren, Samuel Plummer, Sophia Plummer, and Korah Palumbo, and his
companion of ten years, Mary Morris Schmidt, of Tucson AZ.