Milestones October 2014

Deaths

Bowles—David Soule Bowles, 52, on January 4, 2014, in Greensboro, N.C. Dave was born on December 26, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii, the second of four children of Gay and John Bowles. In 1969 the family moved to Pella, Iowa, where they took walks through the oak forests around Lake Red Rock and swam in the pond in Saddler’s Woods. When he was a young man, Bowles was a member of Des Moines Valley (Iowa) Meeting. He spent time with his family in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, climbing to the top of the great Mayan pyramids of Uxmal and Chichen Itza. In Mexico he saw his first keel-billed toucan. His family drove across the country (six people in a 1972 van with no air conditioning) during summers from Iowa to the North Cascade Mountains in central Washington to visit his grandparents in the Stehekin Valley, experiencing the cold glacial streams and the fragrance of the Douglas fir trees. At Pella High School, from which he graduated in 1980, he played trombone in concert and marching band, and excelled in sports as one of the top players on the tennis team. Later he played intramural soccer at Central College. He studied turtles with professor John Iverson at Earlham College, and an interest in Japan led him to join the study abroad program. After graduation in 1984 he returned to Japan to teach English and traveled to Thailand and other places in Asia, once driving an ox and plow through a rice paddy and developing an interest in Chinese herbs and Chinese medicine. After he had spent several years in the Seattle, Wash., area, his roots drew him back to Hawaii for the next 14 years. He swam at Waikiki Beach and practiced qigong tai chi under a large banyan tree in Kapualani Park. He went to the Institute of Clinical Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, graduating in 2011, and found he enjoyed working with people, helping to diagnose their conditions, and discovering ways to help them find a healing path. Dave left Hawaii for Greensboro, N.C., to be closer to his family. He was passionate about using Chinese medicinal herbs, acupuncture, and food to create a healthy mind and body, generously sharing his expertise, knowledge, and experience with family and friends. Dave’s family thanks him for his life and his beautiful gifts, and his gentle spirit lives on in their hearts and will not be forgotten. He wrote a haiku, December 1989: “Blue birds / Out of blue sky / Half Moon Only.” Dave is survived by his parents, John and Gay Bowles; two sisters, Sandy Bowles and Nan Bowles (Tom Kirmeyer); a brother, James Bowles (Heather); one niece; and four nephews.

Bryan—Margueritte Elaine Bryan, on January 14, 2013, in Tucson, Ariz. Marbie was born on September 18, 1930, in Hutchinson, Kans., the youngest of four children of Maude Alice Vancil and George Wilson Bryan. She remembered running for the first time at two and feeling a sense of freedom to go where she wanted to go. By the age of 19, she had read the Bible. Moved by the mystical power of life, hymns, and the teachings of Jesus, she tried several religious practices, including Christian Science. After high school, she received a bachelor’s in education from University of Wisconsin, where she met and married James Brault and came upon Quakers at the university’s Faith Fair. Marbie realized how noisy her mind was and was transformed by silent worship. The couple moved east, first to Ithaca, N.Y., and then to Princeton, N.J., where Jim pursued his master’s and doctorate in physics, and Marbie worked for Educational Testing Services. She took part in Princeton Meeting and a small but energetic group of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. The family moved to Tucson in 1964 for Jim’s job at the Kitt Peak National Observatory. They visited  Europe, China, and India, and they hosted many overseas visitors. She loved to experiment with food and hosted international potlucks with a foreign foods club. At 39, she completed a second bachelor’s and a master’s in drama and took a Progoff Intensive Journal workshop, continuing to keep a journal and learning to address injustice and her anger. In 1984 Marbie and Jim divorced, and she experienced an awakening and an awareness of Truth and Love at Findhorn, a spiritual community and ecovillage in Scotland. She also attended a Course in Miracles and People Facing Change in Their Lives. When she applied for membership at Pima Meeting in Tucson, Ariz., in 1985, her letter stated that after many years of association with Friends it was time to stand up and be counted, as she was moved by the work of the Sanctuary Movement. She kept the Homeless Hospitality project active for several years and served on Long Range Planning Committee, on Ministry and Oversight Committee, as a trustee, and as a greeter. Making dolls to send to El Salvador through American Friends Service Committee, she took the work to Intermountain Yearly Meeting, where the Doll Project became a popular crafts activity. Able to both come up with ideas and follow through, she developed and directed a program for Sci-Expo called Science Alive! that brought into classrooms dramatizations of famous scientists explaining their discoveries. She wrote scripts, made costumes, trained actors, and sometimes acted as Madame Curie. She provided land next to her house for a community garden and sheltered refugees in her home. Before rheumatoid arthritis curtailed her travel in her later years, she traveled the world with the perspective that “everything is important and nothing is important.” A follower of the Dalai Lama, she got a hug from him on her birthday in 2009, a highlight of her life. One of Marbie’s stepgrandchildren predeceased her, and she is survived by her children, Stephen Brault (Jill Thorpe), Lisa Midyett (Jay), and Jennifer Wright (Frank); and two stepgrandchildren, from the Wright family.

Calhoun—Isabelle Hall Fiske Calhoun, known as Barbara, 94, on April 28, 2014, in White River Junction, Vt. Barbara was born on September 9, 1919, in Tucson, Ariz., to newspaper reporters Isabelle Daniel Jones and John Hall. When she was six months old, her father died of Spanish influenza. She studied painting and drawing in Los Angeles and in 1940 went to New York City with plans to study at the Art Students League; instead she took a job for Harvey Comics drawing anti-Nazi characters Pat Parker, War Nurse, and Girl Commandos. About three years later she met Irving Fiske. Barbara had dreamed of living in Vermont after reading Mary E. Waller’s The Woodcarver of ’Lympus, so after she and Irving married in 1946, they bought an old hill farm over the mountain from Olympus, founding Quarry Hill Creative Center. Welcoming freethinkers and artists, they painted, wrote, swam, and picked berries. Although Quarry Hill had few rules, three (still in effect today) were (1) no bullying, spanking, slapping, negating, or neglecting of children; (2) freedom for children to do as they please as much as possible; and (3) no hunting. Barbara liked to quote from the Bible: “They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain.” Believing that children should study those things that interested them, she and Irving did not send their children to school. They avoided truant officers by traveling from Vermont to Florida, where they had a small cabin in the Ocala National Forest. Reading and seeing the historic sites up and down the coast were the foundations of their “unschooling.” Later, the duo founded Vermont’s first Independent Reporting School, North Hollow School, with many of its students finishing as valedictorians in local schools. According to Michael Sherman’s book Freedom and Unity, North Hollow School strongly influenced other alternative schools in Vermont. In the 1960s Barbara operated a gallery in New York’s East Village, exhibiting her art and that of her friends. In 1976, Barbara and Irving divorced, and she created a family corporation to run Quarry Hill: Lyman Hall, Inc. (named after a historic relative of her father’s). In the 1980s she earned a bachelor’s at Johnson State College and a master’s at Vermont College, studying art history and the work of artists who had done their greatest work in their later years. A member of Middlebury (Vt.) Meeting, she met Donald W. Calhoun, a Quaker professor of sociology at University of Miami, and they married in Miami (Fla.) Meeting in 1989. Irving, Don, and Barbara enjoyed each other’s ideas and were close friends until Irving died in 1990. When Don entered a nursing home, she visited him several times a week and was with him just before he died at 91 in 2005. She spent her final winter in Brookside Nursing Home in White River Junction, Vt. Her daughter, Isabella, known as Ladybelle, and son-in-law read aloud to her for most of her last six days and created a guided visualization for her in which she, Don, and other loved ones met at the sunny and peaceful ocean and entered into its flowing peace. Barbara was predeceased by her husband, Donald W. Calhoun, and her son, William Fiske. She is survived by her daughter Isabella Fiske McFarlin (Brion); a nephew and niece; a sister-in-law; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Celebrations of her life were held at Middlebury Meeting on second First Day in September, and at Quarry Hill, where her ashes were scattered, on October 4, 2014.

Loch—John Thomas Loch, 36, on March 24, 2014, in Oceanside, Calif., after a sudden illness. John was born on October 2, 1977, in San Diego, Calif., to grateful parents Karen Frances and Thomas Gregory Loch. During his childhood, he participated in t-ball, Little League, and American Youth Soccer Organization, and he had a lifelong passion for skateboarding. His musical talents included tap dancing at the fair and playing the violin and piano. Influenced by his grandfather, an aeronautical engineer, he became interested in aeronautics in junior high school and won first place in the San Diego city-wide Science Fair, an award that allowed him to travel to Cape Kennedy, witness the launch of the space shuttle Endeavor, and meet astronaut Wally Schirra. He was a child of La Jolla (Calif.) Meeting, participating in First-day school and leading youth programs, and joining the meeting when he was in high school. One young Friend recalls how John’s support and confidence as JYM clerk in Pacific Yearly Meeting influenced him, with John going out of his way to mentor him and encourage his leadership. John also participated in several American Friends Service Committee and Southern California Quarterly Meeting service projects and served as a FAP (Friendly Adult Presence) at quarterly meeting. At Morse High School, from which he graduated in 1995, he took a course in aeronautics and learned how to fly a single engine airplane alongside his instructor. He attended San Marcos State University and Palomar College, receiving an associate of arts degree in radio. In college, he hosted a radio show called California Soul, playing music from the ’60s and ’70s. There was nothing John didn’t know about good music, and he loved to dance. He had a passion for ska, soul, rocksteady, and reggae music. For the past six years, he hosted a radio show and had an avid following at KCEO, where he was also a producer. Every year John and his mother would travel to Richmond, Ind., to spend the Christmas holidays with her extended family and to Cincinnati, Ohio, to spend the Fourth of July with his father. Maintaining contact with his extended family was important to him. He loved people, and everyone who met him loved him. He had a calm, gentle demeanor and a diverse group of friends. During his hospitalization, countless friends came from all over to see him, claiming to be relatives so that they could see him in ICU. John is survived by his parents, Karen Frances Thomas and Thomas Gregory Loch; one brother, Michael Loch; his grandfather, Joseph Loch; several aunts, uncles, and cousins; and a host of friends.

Salzmann—Karin Johnson Salzmann, 81, on July 13, 2013, at home in Portland, Ore., surrounded by her children and their cousins. Karin was born on October 10, 1931, in San Francisco, Calif., the only child in a matriarchy of strong women of Irish and Spanish descent. Winning a Glamour magazine contest, “Ten Girls with Taste” in 1952, she became the buyer/editor for their catalog and moved to New York City, where she met her husband, Richard Salzmann, who worked at the United Nations. She graduated from Goddard College, where she kindled a lifelong passion for Montessori education. She promoted the founding of the Association of Montessori International (AMI/USA) and served as its first executive director for 12 years, emphasizing the spiritual aspect of Montessori and setting the stage for the organization’s current activities. Karin went on to direct two Montessori schools in Connecticut and later traveled as a Montessori examiner at teacher training institutes in the United States, Thailand, Japan, and China. She increasingly directed her understanding of Montessori pedagogy to pre- and post-natal environments. She studied video photography and produced three documentaries on infant development, including “A Tribute to Silvana Montanaro, M.D.,” available on YouTube. In the years before her death, she was writing a book for new mothers about prenatal development. She attended the 1996 Hague Conference on the legality and use of nuclear weapons. Karin was active in Santa Fe (N.M.) Meeting during the 1990s, serving on ministry and counsel and engaging in peace activities. She hosted Los Alamos Study Group; draft counseling sessions; and People for Peace, who made their banners and posters on the floor of her living room, which she had designed to have south-facing French doors that looked across a desert meadow and a mermaid swimming across the length of a cabinet in the adjoining kitchen. A published poet, writer, and skilled graphic artist, she made posters, banners, and flyers, and each February sent exquisite collages of poems and drawings by her and others to friends: thin sheets of colored paper laced with tiny glitter that escaped containment, just like her, glitter that showed up years later in couch seams. Underlying her commitment to peace were her belief that early childhood education could change the world, her Zen Buddhist practice, and her Quaker faith and practice. In 1999, she moved to Trinidad, Calif., fulfilling her longing to live by the sea, and became part of Humboldt Meeting in Arcata, Calif. She joined a group that did outreach on torture and worked to pass Proposition 34 to end the death penalty in California. Humboldt Friends used these words about her: laughter, poetry, wisdom, compassion, grace, wit, and appreciation, and said that after her first round with cancer “her brand of healthy irreverence was undimmed” and that she faced death with “joy and curiosity, . . . an embarkation, as she saw it, on the next journey.” Karin’s conscience embodied this truth: to regenerate a broken world, we never forget the beautiful. Karin is survived by two children, Katharine Salzmann and Michael Salzmann; and two grandchildren.

Tatum—Arlo De Vere Tatum, 91, on April 2, 2014, in Truro, Cornwall, U.K.  Dev, as he was known, was born on February 21, 1923, in Prairie City, Iowa. Registered as a birthright Friend, he attended what is now William Penn University and when he was 18, urged by Friends to register for the draft as a conscientious objector, he found that as an absolutist, he could not do so. Disillusioned with Quakers, he resigned his membership and wrote to the U.S. attorney general refusing to register. Sentenced to three and a half years in the federal prison in Sandstone, Minn., he was paroled in 1944 to Bethany Hospital in Chicago. With his fine bass baritone voice, he won a scholarship to study at American Conservatory of Music in Chicago and a competition to sing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He became a soloist with Chicago Concert and Opera Guild and brought live music to local schools with Tatum School Entertainments. But in 1948 a new draft law was passed, again he refused to register, and again he went to prison. After his release, he resumed singing but in 1951 he was injured in a near fatal car/train crash, recovering after many months in the hospital and no longer able to sing professionally. He became co-executive secretary, with Bayard Rustin, of the War Resisters League, writing Handbook for Conscientious Objectors, now in its twelfth edition (with more than 420,000 copies sold). In 1955 he moved to London to become general secretary of War Resisters International (WRI), setting up the first Nigerian WRI group and traveling in India for WRI. He wrote peace and protest songs—including some for the Aldermaston anti-nuclear weapons marches—directed Peace News, and started the World Peace Brigade, walking with nonviolence advocate Vinoba Bhave. He met Polly Carton in London, and in 1962 they married and moved to Philadelphia, Pa., for his work as executive secretary of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO). He toured for guest talks, testified in U.S. Senate hearings, and edited Guide to the Draft with Joseph Tuchinsky. In Laird v. Tatum, CCCO sued the U.S. government over the army’s surveillance of lawful and peaceful civilian political activity, winning on appeal, but the Supreme Court overturned the decision. In 1972 the family, now with two daughters, returned to London, where he was caretaker and gardener for Coram, a charity for vulnerable children. Preparing meals for events, he once made lunch for 80 people by himself! He rejoined the Religious Society of Friends, became a council member of the Peace Pledge Union, chairing it from 1978 to 1981, and managed the Circle Trust Club in Camberwell for ex-offenders, starting a second club in Brixton. Enjoying writing, gardening, walking, and table tennis, he did choral singing after retiring to Cornwall, giving a recital on his eightieth birthday. At a Christmas concert in 2013, he sang “Mighty Lord” from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio without the score. He was devoted to Wadebridge Meeting in Cornwall, which he founded and attended faithfully for as long as he could. In his final weeks Friends gave Dev and Polly joy by holding meeting at their home in Bodmin, Cornwall. Dev is survived by his wife, Polly Carton Tatum; two daughters, Janet Honer and Sarah Farrell; two grandchildren; and a niece and nephew. Donations may be made to Children’s Hospice South West, Little Harbour, Porthpean Road, Porthpean, St Austell, Cornwall PL26 6AZ, or Peace Pledge Union, 1 Peace Passage, London N7 0BT.

Wilson—Helen Louise Brown Wilson, 93, on June 23, 2014, in Harbourway Assisted Living Facility at Atlantic Shores in Virginia Beach, Va., lovingly cared for by nurses, family, and friends. Helen Louise was born on February 17, 1921, near Woodland, N.C., the first child of Christine Frazier and David Heston Brown, both with family traditions of Quaker values and Southern hospitality. She attended Westtown School (giving up cheerleading to star on the varsity basketball, lacrosse, hockey, and tennis teams and breaking the record for receiving the most letters) and Guilford College, where she met and married fellow Quaker Bob Wilson, from High Point, N.C. Louise and Bob first lived in High Point and in 1952 moved with their two children to Virginia Beach, Va., starting a Quaker meeting in their Linkhorn Park home. In 1954, Louise was recorded as a Quaker minister, or “Minister among Friends,” as her grandfathers had been. The next year she co-founded Virginia Beach Friends School. In her book A View from My Window (1995), Louise, head of the school for many years, outlines the history of the meeting and school and how she and several young fellow Quakers and friends, notably Jane Waller, did everything during the early months of the school from driving the school bus to making the lunches. Active in prison ministry and the Junior League, she served interdenominational ministerial boards and other civic organizations, and she was named First Citizen of Virginia Beach in 1960. Her article “Breaking the Pattern of the Fear of Death” appeared in Friends Journal May 1976. She was a popular and respected speaker, storyteller, and workshop leader and served on educational boards and committees, including those for Pendle Hill, Earlham School of Religion, and Guilford College, where she became a trustee emeritus. Her 1996 memoir Inner Tenderings recounts her spiritual journey and ministry across these years. She remained active on Virginia Beach Meeting Ministry and Oversight committee until shortly before her death. Although the tonal quality of her speaking faded as she aged, she never lost her gift of capturing the essence of the moment and translating it into a message that spoke to the condition of those who heard her. But she would want to be remembered not by her résumé but by the individual hearts that became a part of her heart, and not by her words but by the spirit and shared silence from which they were born. Throughout her life, she received letters from people across the world thanking her for having touched their lives. She was also a beautiful homemaker, beloved parent, grandparent, and friend. An avid sports aficionado, she was the quintessential Tar Heel fan and always had her television tuned to a sports channel. She moved to Atlantic Shores retirement community when Bob died in 2000. She made friends and was active in the community’s writing group, publishing pieces in The Poet’s Domain. Louise is survived by two children, Bob Wilson Jr. (Janet) and Diane Hofheimer (Charles); two brothers, David Brown (Mae) and Benjamin Brown (Myra); seven grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren. Memorial donations can be made to the Bob and Louise Wilson Scholarship Fund at Virginia Beach Friends School, 1537 Laskin Road, Virginia Beach, VA 23451.

Young—V. Barry Young, 75, on January 28, 2014, in Fountain Hill, Pa., surrounded by his family. Barry was born on December 7, 1938, in Wilmington, Del., to Mabel E. “Boots” Coulter and Vernon T. Young. He graduated from Liberty High School in 1956 and attended Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science, and he and his brother, Ron, co-owned Hess Pharmacy and Health Care Services in Bethlehem, Pa. After retiring, Young earned a master’s in holistic spirituality and spiritual direction from Chestnut Hill College and taught at the college and at Kairos School for Spiritual Formation. Together with his wife, pastoral counselor Louise Harris Young, he worked with a variety of faith communities, leading spiritual formation, parenting, mid-life, and marriage classes and retreats. He and Louise first encountered Lehigh Valley Meeting in Bethlehem, Pa., when they came to lead a spiritual formation workshop. They joined the meeting in 2003, served on the care and concern committee, and led many workshops and classes, including Encountering the Wisdom Jesus, based on a series of lectures by Cynthia Bourgeault. Barry helped Friends listen, reflect, and dialogue to broaden and deepen their connection to the wisdom that some call Divine Consciousness or Light. Friends played, meditated, worshipped, and made art, music, and poetry in Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary weekend retreat. He and Louise led discussions on Jesus’s teachings and their relevance to living in the Light. All this time Barry struggled with Parkinson’s Disease. He didn’t complain or let his physical difficulties deter his spiritual growth, instead using his pain to deepen his relationship to the Spirit. In December 2013, sharing his spiritual journey, he talked of wanting to know more about Jesus and said that he would not want to give up his Parkinson’s Disease because it was part of his spiritual journey and had made him more compassionate and aware of others’ suffering. Friends were blessed to have him as a teacher and touchstone to the Divine. He left Friends with this query: What do we think we are doing when we pray? And he shared this final poem, What I Learned: “Grief is letting go of all we think we own. / No matter to what we cling / Be it person, place or thing. / Everything I think is mine / Slips away, is an illusion, / a state of mind. / It matters not how we resist. / When day is done, Love persists.” During his brief stay in the hospital, he talked, joked, cried, and prayed with his family. At the celebration of his life, his grandchildren shared his final words of blessing to them, “Fear not.” Barry is survived by his wife of 54 years, Louise Harris Young; four children, Lori Young (Rodman), Kari Young-Keyock (Michael Keyock), Jeffrey Young (Lisa), and Tacey Young-Shook (Randy Shook); and ten grandchildren.

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