Milestones February 2013

Births

HeilandLaura Kelley Heiland was born to Julie Heiland and Martin Kelley on January 22, 2012, at 8:15 p.m, in Elmer, N.J. Martin, an active Quaker blogger and member of Atlantic City (N.J.) Area Meeting, serves as editor of Friends Journal, and Julie, a member of St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church of Millville, N.J., is an adjunct professor at Atlantic Cape Community College. Laura is the grandaughter of Liz Klein on Martin’s side and Thomas Heiland on Julie’s side. She joins three brothers: Theodore (8), Francis (6) and Gregory (1). The family lives in Hammonton, N.J.

WardEden Mae Ward was born to Jennifer Rhode Ward and Landon Ward on May 13, 2012, at 10:35 a.m., in Asheville, N.C., weighing 7 pounds 12 ounces and being 20.5 inches long. Eden Mae is the granddaughter of Judith and Richard Rhode and Joyce Ward and the great-granddaughter of Rosemarie Harrison, long-time member of Media (Pa.) Meeting, under whose care Landon and Jen were married in August 2009. Jen teaches biology at University of North Carolina Asheville, and Landon teaches biology and environmental studies at UNC Asheville and Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College. The Ward family attends Asheville Meeting, where Jen serves as recording clerk. Asheville Friends welcomed the baby in September with a quilt whose squares were contributed by many Friends.

Deaths

ChambersGordon C. Chambers, 90, on August 20, 2012, at Chandler Hall, Newtown, Pa. Gordon was born on April 13, 1922, in Philadelphia, Pa., to Christina and George Chambers. A carpenter/contractor who worked for Bucks County, Friends Hospital, Jesse Terry, and Maloney Brothers Building Contactors, he lived all his life in Feasterville, Pa. Wrightstown (Pa.) Meeting, where he found peace, love, support, and acceptance, played a significant role in his life. He loved the meetinghouse and grounds and found great joy from being able to work with restoration projects on the building and grounds. After attending for a number of years, Gordon became a member two years before he died. It is an inspiration to all that at the age of 87, he was still exploring and looking for meaning. He enjoyed being outdoors, working in the garden, hunting, fishing, watching NASCAR races, and spending time with his family. Gordon’s wife of 35 years, Alice Hammond Chambers, and two sisters preceded him in death. He is survived by three children: Gordon Chambers Jr. (Beth), Patricia Chambers (Walt Christopher Stickney), and Janet Chambers (Donald Guindon); four granddaughters; and two great-grandsons. Memorial contributions may be made in Gordon’s name to Wrightstown Meeting.

EwertGregory Albert Ewert, 63, on August 10, 2012, in his home on Lopez Island, Wash., just before midnight, surrounded by his wife and daughters. Greg was born on February 11, 1949, in Lansing, Mich., where he grew up in a lively family of seven. In 1967 he left home to attend University of Washington, beginning a lifelong love of the Pacific Northwest. While in college, he took a kayak trip to the San Juan Islands that made him dream of living on Lopez Island. He earned a teaching degree in architecture at UW, and working with photographers there gave him skills that he later incorporated in his teaching. Beginning in 1977, he taught in Seattle at The Little School, in Ambler, Ark., and in Seattle at Lakeside School. He was a founder and continuing supporter of Coyote Central, a community-based program connecting middle school students with creative professionals. Greg met Nancy Schubert in 1987, and a year later, they married and moved to Lopez Island into a home he had designed. He taught for two years on neighboring Shaw Island in a one-room schoolhouse and then at the Lopez School, where over the years he taught fifth grade, in the Alternative K-5 program, and finally in Lopez Middle school. Students especially appreciated his ability in teaching math. While he found deep spiritual nourishment in the outdoors, he was involved in North Pacific Yearly Meeting and Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting, serving as Central Friends advisor, Junior Friends Advisor and with Nancy as facilitator at FGC. He and his family were founding members of Lopez Island Preparative Meeting in Washington. In 2002, the family went on a Fulbright teaching exchange to Exeter, England, where he taught at Stoke Canon School. Supporting experiential education and exemplifying its success, Greg believed that most important learning takes place outside the classroom, and he led students to believe in themselves and was a mentor and friend. As well as teaching all his daughters in the classroom, he led them to delight in the outdoors through mountain hikes, boating, and camping. He was most happy sleeping under the stars and only used a tent if he had to. Greg was a dreamer and a visionary, fulfilling many of his dreams but always having more. He traveled all over the U.S. and Canada in his youth, and in adulthood he went to Alaska, Russia, Japan, England, Europe, and Nicaragua. He photographed and co-published an award-winning book, Kindred Spirits, in 2001, and fulfilled his lifelong dream of becoming a pilot in 2006. Diagnosed in August 2010 with a Glioblastoma brain tumor, Greg lived with his illness until the day he died, the same way he had lived the rest of his life: with courage, a sense of humor, and optimism. Noble and graceful as his body failed him, he left his mark on the world as a husband, father, friend, teacher, mentor, uncle, brother, photographer, juggler, outdoor adventurer, pilot, sailor, mountain climber, and table tennis player. Greg is survived by his wife, Nancy Schubert Ewert; three daughters, Emma Ewert, Lilly Ewert, and Clara Ewert; one brother, David Ewert; three sisters, Jane Ewert, Mary VanWylen, and Cathy Benson; and seven nieces and nephews, Erika Boll, Jessica Boll, Sarah Stafford, Christopher Ewert, Lauren Benson, Nick Benson, and Jack Benson. It was Greg’s wish that memorial contributions be made to the Lopez School Nicaragua Service Trip, 86 School Road, Lopez, WA 98261.

LlewellynJane Hosmer Foss Llewellyn, 94, on October 20, 2012, at home in Wyncote, Pa. Jane was born on February 24, 1918, in Ithaca, N.Y., to Jessie Irwin and Ralph Sheldon Hosmer. Jane was one of the first non-Quaker students at Westtown School and graduated in 1935. During her high school and college years, Jane spent summers at a Quaker work camp in Small Point, Maine, run by Mam and Uncle Bert Baily. These became the basis of lifelong friendships and gave her an inclination for service. She received a bachelor’s degree from Smith College in 1939 and a master’s from Smith School of Social Work in 1941, using her experiences at the work camps as the basis of her master’s thesis. Jane worked as a social worker for Children’s Aid Societies in Baltimore, Md., Rochester, N.Y., and Los Angeles, Calif. She married Dr. Ernest Foss Jr., whom she had met in the work camps, in 1941. Ernie, a doctor in the U.S. Army, was killed in action when the hospital ship USS Comfort was hit by a kamikaze in 1945. In 1948, Jane married Robert Hall Llewellyn, a professor of English at Temple University, whom she had also met through Quaker work camps. Moving to the Philadelphia area, Jane served as clerk of Cheltenham (Pa.) Meeting (since laid down) and as a member of Interim Meeting of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. She was a member of the board of Stapeley in Germantown, serving on committees and especially enjoying the task of distributing pin money to needy residents. For many years, she was a member of the personnel committee of American Friends Service Committee, for which she interviewed potential new staff members. She served as treasurer of the Wyncote, Pa. PTA, as a den mother for the Cub Scouts, as an active fundraiser for institutions such as Jeanes Hospital, and as secretary for her class at Smith College, enjoying her visits to the campus. Jane was preceded in death by her son Philip Hall Llewellyn and by her husband Robert H. Llewellyn. She is survived by three sons, Ernest Foss III (Roberta), Mark Hosmer Llewellyn, and Robert Irwin Llewellyn (Martha); and three grandchildren, Chelsea Llewellyn, Matt Llewellyn, and Jesse Llewellyn. For those desiring, donations in Jane’s memory may be made to Westtown School, Westtown, PA 19382 or to a charity of their choice.

McDowellNancy Parker McDowell, 95, on June 4, 2012, in Oxford, Ohio, after a life devoted to art, adventure, and people. Nancy was born on July 5, 1916, in Relay, Md., to Anna and Lindley Parker. She grew up in a large family near Baltimore, Md., and followed her grandparents, parents, and siblings to Westtown School, where she made lifelong friends. Majoring in biology at Goucher College, throughout her life she enjoyed sharing her love of growing things with family and friends. She spent 1939 teaching at the Friends Girls School in Ramallah, Palestine, and memories of her time in the Middle East fueled lively stories and anecdotes for the rest of her life. In 1951, she and her husband, James McDowell, moved to Richmond, Ind., where Jim taught psychology at Earlham College. The family participated in Clear Creek Meeting in Richmond and the extended community at Earlham. After their children were in school, Nancy worked part time at Earlham, eventually becoming the art slide curator. In 1986, she received a master’s degree from Earlham School of Religion; her thesis topic was the mosaics of Ravenna in Italy. The arts were important to her, especially theater, and she expressed herself with drawings, paintings, poems, and stories with illustrations. She enjoyed cooking, sewing, home decorating, gardening, hiking, camping, folk dancing, singing, storytelling, projects on the 150-year-old McDowell farm near Abington, Ind., and supporting the interests and activities of children and young people. She traveled and hiked throughout the United States and Europe, hiking solo in the mountains of Norway in her seventies. A life student of history, especially the history of art and religious symbolism, she started traveling yearly to Ireland in 1997 with a group from the Jung Society to visit key sites from myths and legends, continuing these tours well into her eighties. In 2002, she published a book, Notes from Ramallah, 1939, based on her journal and letters home from Ramallah. Nancy loved gatherings; besides having friends for supper or to clear trails at the farm, she and Jim took part in social and study groups that continued for decades, including a literary/political study group, a hiking group, a philosophical book group, and a Friends supper group. She touched many lives and is remembered with gratitude and joy. Nancy was predeceased by her husband, James Vail McDowell. She is survived by four children, Rebecca McDowell, Caroline Baker, Andrew McDowell, and Katherine Kanazawa; eight grandchildren; and thirteen great-grandchildren. A memorial service was held in August 2012 at Clear Creek Meeting in Richmond, Ind., at which 150 friends and family members joined in celebrating her remarkable life, sharing memories of her liveliness, enthusiasm, and creativity.

PalmerD. Russell Palmer, 95, on August 14, 2012, in Waynesville, Ohio. Russell was born on January 9, 1917, in Chester, Pa., the seventh son and last child of Arletta Cutler and Charles Palmer. From childhood, he was interested in air travel, and he filled scrapbooks with articles about airplanes, pilots, blimps, and balloons. His father’s family had been Quakers in North America for eight generations, and he grew up in Goshen Meeting in Goshenville, Pa., enjoying Young Friends activities and meeting many who stayed in touch through the years, still calling themselves “Young Friends” even in old age. Recognizing that learning to fly was expensive, and finding a pilot job uncertain, he went into aviation mechanics and spent most of his working life maintaining small aircraft. He was a conscientious objector during World War II, managing forests, welding pipelines, and working as a nurse’s aide for the Civilian Public Service. Until Congress passed a law prohibiting COs from leaving the country, he was part of the China Unit, studying Chinese and learning how to maintain and operate a charcoal-powered ambulance. When he was working at the Alexian Brothers Hospital in Chicago, he met Ruth W. Coppock in a Young Friends group. They married in 1945 and moved to Missoula, Mont., and he worked as a smoke jumper to finish his CPS obligation. After the war he operated his own business for a while and worked in a lab experimenting with ultrasonics, moving his family from place to place for some years. He finally settled down as head mechanic at an airport near Lansdale, Pa., where he stayed for 19 years before retiring at age 65. During this time he was a member of Gwynedd (Pa.) Meeting. Russell was a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector and a licensed hot-air balloon inspector whose integrity and diligence served his airborne travelers well; after he signed off on an aircraft repair, there were no injuries or fatalities from mechanical failure. Although he seldom spoke about religion or theology, he took Quaker testimonies seriously, and he served as treasurer of meeting as well as on several committees, including the property committee. He did most of the work on his cars and houses himself, and he always had a garden for the fresh vegetables he liked. He used the little free time he had to travel and to take his family on camping vacations. Although his life of hard work did not leave much time to play, he was a playful person, enjoying company, card and table games, jigsaw puzzles, and table tennis. After the children grew up, he and Ruth became active in square dancing and a local theatrical troop. He also became interested in sailing. He upgraded his boat from a Sunfish to a 22-foot Catalina and retired to Chestertown, Md., to be near open water. He joined Chester River Meeting in Chestertown and volunteered for Meals on Wheels and the READ literacy project. He belonged to the area Council of Churches and AARP. When Chester River Meeting went from gathering in a small rental space to owning their own building, he aided in that transition. Russell and Ruth traveled all over the United States in an old van that contained a kitchen and bed and went on sailing vacations in the Caribbean, New England, and the Chesapeake Bay. They traveled to Hawaii, New Zealand, and Alaska and cruised through the Panama Canal. In 1994, they moved to the Cincinnati area, joining Eastern Hills Meeting. He continued to serve Meals on Wheels and tutor for the Literacy Council. One young woman he helped had been unable to read even the labels at the grocery store, and not long before he died, she sent a note saying that she was attending college. Russell had a wry sense of humor, high integrity, and a sense of responsibility to others. He taught his children fiscal management, home improvement, and general maintenance skills. Money was always tight, yet he expected his children to attend college, and he shouldered the costs. He faithfully supported Ruth during the challenges of her mental illness and dementia. During her long seven-year decline, he visited her every day, taking the long walk from his assisted living room at Quaker Heights Care Community to her nursing home cafeteria three times a day to help her eat, regardless of his own health issues. He was a strong, silent man who showed Ruth great tenderness when she was most vulnerable. His steadfast care of her is an example to all of us of fidelity and commitment to helping others. Ruth died in 2011. Russell is survived by four children, David Palmer, Ralph Palmer, Wilson Palmer, and Patty Greenwald; 7 grandchildren; and 2 great-grandchildren.

Povolny—Mojmir Povolny, 90, on August 21, 2012, at home in Appleton, Wis. Mojmir was born on November 25, 1921, in the Moravian village of Menin in what is now the Czech Republic. He obtained a JD degree from Masaryk University School of Law in Brno, Czechoslovakia, and during his university studies, he was active in the Benes Party’s democratic youth movement, serving from 1947 until 1948 as the executive secretary of its Economic Council in Prague. Aided by sympathetic members of the Communist secret police, he escaped from Czechoslovakia after the Communist coup d’état in April 1948 and spent the rest of his life in exile. He worked for a year as an assistant to the European Director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, at the same time studying international law at the Sorbonne’s Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales. He came to the United States in 1950 and received his doctorate in International Relations from University of Chicago in 1954. He became an American citizen in 1956. From 1954 until 1957, he served as an assistant director in the International Student Program of AFSC, first in Philadelphia and then in Tokyo. Mojmir and Joyce Wuesthoff married in 1956. After he returned from Japan, he taught briefly at University of Chicago, and in 1958 he moved to Appleton, Wis., to teach at Lawrence University. Mojmir was a Catholic; he sometimes attended Evanston (Ill.) Meeting with Joyce, who was a member there. Parallel to his academic career, Mojmir was devoted to the liberation of Czechoslovakia from Communist and later Soviet occupation. A member of the Council of Free Czechoslovakia, in 1974 he was elected as its chair. He retired from Lawrence in 1987 as Emeritus Professor of Government and Henry M. Wriston Professor of Social Sciences. Mojmir led the Council of Free Czechoslovakia until the fall of the Communist regime during the Velvet Revolution in 1989. He traveled frequently to the Czech Republic at the government’s invitation to assist with the reconstruction of his homeland’s civil society. In 1995, on October 28, the independence day of the Czech Republic, President Vaclav Havel presented him with the Masaryk Order, the Czech Republic’s highest civilian honor “for his service to democracy and human rights.”  Mojmir was an avid gardener and enjoyed travel, living in Paris and London during his time at Lawrence, and he wrote and published many articles and speeches. The government department of Lawrence University named a lecture series in his honor. He was preceded in death by his father, Antonin Povolny; his mother, Marie Konecny Povolny; a brother, Borivoj Povolny (Olga); and a grandson, Jacob Daniel Povolny. Mojmir is survived by his wife of 56 years, Joyce Wuesthoff Povolny; two children, David Povolny (Susan) and Daniel Povolny (Kathleen); ten grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. Memorials may be donated to American Friends Service Committee, 1501 Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA 19102, and online condolences may be expressed at www.wichmannfargo.com.

ScovilleAlice Trumbull Scoville, 101, on October 15, 2012, in Ithaca, N.Y. Alice was born on July 3, 1911, in Rosemont, Pa., to Katharine Gallaudet Trumbull and Samuel Scoville Jr. She graduated from the Shipley School in 1929 and from Vassar College in 1933. She married Stuyvesant “Peter” Barry in 1935, and they lived in Boston and New York while Peter practiced law. When he made a career change, leaving the law for a career in teaching, they moved to Pennsylvania. There Peter and Alice became members of the Religious Society of Friends, joining Radnor (Pa.) Meeting. They began to direct Quaker summer work camps in Maine, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, and Mexico and lived for several years in Pine Mountain, Ky., where Peter taught at a settlement school. They settled finally in Bucks County, where in 1948, Peter began teaching at Buckingham Friends School and became principal. Alice was the mother of five children and was active in school and meeting affairs. She started the school clothing sale, an annual event that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, for which she received the title Queen of the Clothing Sale. Despite her family obligations, Alice was an adventurous traveler, going alone to France to oversee the funeral of a great-uncle in Versailles, a trip she chronicled for the local newspaper. She traveled alone behind the Iron Curtain into Communist Poland to visit a family to which she had sent CARE packages during World War II, meeting Lech Walesa, who called her a friend of Poland. For years she wrote a lively and popular column for the New Hope Gazette, and she also wrote a pamphlet on Abraham Lincoln’s suppression of The Journal of Commerce, as well as an unpublished biography of her great-great- grandfather, Henry Ward Beecher. When she discovered a set of old parchment documents in a trunk in the attic, written in Spanish, she tracked down their origins to the archives in Santa Fe, learned that the pages had been stolen from the state a century earlier, and returned them to New Mexico. With Peter she traveled around the world, to Thailand, Africa, India, the Galapagos Islands, England, and Europe. She was a voracious reader who took pleasure in reading Georges Simenon in the original French. As a member of Buckingham Meeting, she generously offered help and wisdom for many years. She played tennis until she was well into her seventies and enjoyed music, people, conversation, and adventure, taking great pleasure in laughter, often viewing life as a series of hilarious opportunities for delight. Gallant, funny, warm, loving and indefatigable, she had an extraordinary generosity of soul. She is survived by five children, Frank Barry, Katharine Maclaurin, David Barry, Roxana Robinson, and Bethany Menkart; nine grandchildren; and ten great-grandchildren.

Sterrett—Jean Williams Stubbs Sterrett, 93, on August 12, 2012, at Firbank at Crosslands in Kennett Square, Pa. Jean was born on September 3, 1918, in Brooklyn, N.Y., to Laurette W. and Horace R. Stubbs and was the youngest of four sisters. Jean was a member of Brooklyn (N.Y.) Meeting from birth. She was descended from Thomas Stubbs and Mary Minor, who had married at Kennett Meeting in Kennett Square, Pa., in 1720. Jean graduated from Brooklyn Friends School and the Savage School for Physical Education. At Brooklyn Friends, she was student body president and played field hockey, basketball, lacrosse, tennis, and softball. When she was a sophomore, she was high scorer on a field hockey team that did not give up a goal the whole season, and she was high scorer on lacrosse her senior year, when she was named Most Valuable Girl Athlete. Jean and James Woods Sterrett married in 1941 at Brooklyn Meetinghouse. They lived in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, for 45 years. She was active on many committees and served as clerk of Brooklyn Preparative Meeting as well as Fifteenth Street Meeting in New York. Beginning in the 1980s, she was a member of the Dyer Heights Garden Club in Brooklyn, winning awards for flower arranging and house plants. She also began volunteering at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, becoming President of the Women’s Auxiliary in 1985. She learned to quilt that same year when the Auxiliary made a floral quilt to raise money. She continued to quilt into her 90s, receiving many awards and blue ribbons for her skills in hand quilting. Jim and Jean traveled extensively in the United States and around the world, making many friends who visited them in Brooklyn. In 1987, they moved to the New York Yearly Meeting Friends Home (The McCutchen) in North Plainfield, N.J., and 17 years later to Crosslands in Chester County, Pa. In later life Jean became an avid golfer, and while at Crosslands, she enjoyed croquet. Jean’s husband, James Woods Sterrett, preceded her in death in 2009. She is survived by her children, Timothy Stubbs Sterrett, Alice Sterrett Hilton, Elizabeth Sterrett Laube, and Frank Stubbs Sterrett; 8 grandchildren; and 6 great-grandchildren.

 

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