Marcere was born on October 21, 1908, in Canton, Ohio. She graduated from Canton McKinley High School in 1926.[1] After graduating from McKinley, Marcere worked to pay for her teaching degree tuition at Kent State University.[2] After earning her teaching degree, Marcere graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in elementary education and a Master of Arts degree in counseling.[3] With these degrees, Marcere applied to teach in her hometown of Canton, however, a superintendent refused to hire her based on her race.[2][4] As a result, her first teaching placement was at Edmund A. Junior High. As her career developed, she became the first African-American counselor and school psychologist in the Akron City Schools.[2][4]
In 1969, Marcere was elected a lay member of the Youngstown Diocesan Board of Education.[5] Nearly a decade later, in 1976, Marcere retired from teaching and wrote two autobiographies.[2] The two books were later formed into a play by Lois DiGiacomo in 1994[6] which was performed in front of an audience of more than 12,000 people.[7]
In 1973, Marcere was named Junior League Woman of the Year. In 1979, Marcere established the Project for Academic Excellence (PAX), a Saturday school for underachieving inner-city elementary students. This led to the development of Study, Think, Read, Investigate, Volunteer and Excel (STRIVE), a program for minority students that focused on social issues and personal responsibility.[8]
In 1991, Marcere was awarded the Norma Award, named after Norma Sigler Atkins Rowlands, for her educational work.[9] In 1998, she earned the Sister Thea Bowman Medallion from the Office for Black Catholic Ministries of the Diocese of Toledo.[10] She was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame in 1985.
Marcere died on August 10, 2004, of natural causes.[8]
