Karen Rumble

June 19, 1942 — Aug. 23, 2026

Karen (Johnson) Rumble, 84, of Flagstaff, Arizona, died peacefully Sunday, Aug. 23, after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer’s.

She was born June 19, 1942, in Boston, Massachusetts to Kenneth and Ann Johnson, the second of their three children. Born two months premature, Karen survived and led a life centered around service to others through teaching and volunteering.

After growing up and attending public schools in the Boston area, she attended her father’s alma mater, Iowa State, to major in clothing design and art history. After graduation she began teaching middle school in Lexington, Massachusetts. It was there that she met Doug Rumble at a Halloween party in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1966. The two were married Aug. 19, 1967, in Reading, Massachusetts.

They had two children, a daughter (Ann) born in 1970 in Melrose, Massachusetts, and a son (Kenneth) born in 1974 in Washington, D.C.

After a brief relocation to Los Angeles, the family settled in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where Karen taught art at Francis Scott Key Middle School in Silver Spring, Maryland. During her time there, Karen was recognized for outstanding work in art education and practice by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

When not teaching, she was a volunteer with the L’Arche Community of Adams-Morgan, Washington, D.C., where she helped care for developmentally disabled adults. Karen gave generously to Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Bethesda, Maryland, where she visited elderly parishioners. She participated in the Marriage Preparation program at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Washington, D.C., and was a long-standing member of the Advent and Lenten Prayer Groups.

She retired from teaching in 2005 and joined Doug, a geologist, on field trips to South Africa, China and Australia, among other places. She and Doug moved to Flagstaff in 2018.

A few of Karen’s most cherished activities included swimming, whether it be at a local pool or at Post Pond in Lyme, New Hampshire, where the family spent many summers; attending operas at the Kennedy Center in D.C. with friends and family; kayaking in Maine and vacationing in France with Doug; traveling to several U.S. national parks with family; and visiting her sister, Sandra, brother-in-law Frank (Helverson), and many nieces and nephews in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.