Ruth Olver, R.I.P.

Two years ago my parents' dear friend John Olver died. I only wrote the first of two posts I had planned to write on him. We had a visiting lecturer from Botswana at school on almost-last-minute notice and I never got to write more. But the first post is here and will tell you a bit about him. (There is a good link to a short bio.) John was a warm, witty, intelligent man who worked for UNDP, the United Nations Development Programme, for most of his life. I think of him when I hear news of Gaza because he was one of the few people who managed to get anything done there. In his case, it was bringing fresh water to Gaza. He wrote a book about it, but I think it was a self-publish and never got out there into the wide world. I once saw a used copy on Amazon, though. It was called Roadblocks and Mindblocks: Partnering with The PLO and Israel.

John died in March of 2008, a month full of deaths and with Holy Week in it besides.

Today John's wife Ruth Olver died. Ruth and my mother met at Hunter College in uptown Manhattan when they were in their late teens. They used to study at the library together, taking turns napping. Later, when they were both married, the two couples became close friends and my mother became godmother to Ruth's second child, a daughter. I used to get hand-me-down clothes from Amy; they would arrive in a package at our house in Paris, all the way from wherever the Olvers were at the time. For a while they lived in Geneva.

We received news of Ruth's passing from Ruth and John's son this evening. (Interesting note: both he and I entered the Episcopal Church in our middle age.) Ruth had been very ill for several years. She had Parkinson's and other ailments, and she had recently turned 92 years old.

Ruth Olver was an early civil rights activist, attempting to integrate public facilities in Washington, D.C. in the early 1940s (as did my mother's late brother, Don Rothenberg). Her son wrote, "A brilliant woman of her generation, after her marriage to the late John Olver in 1944 she devoted herself to raising her children and supporting the UN career of our late father. However, she was always very active in organizing schools, supplies and other social support for children wherever he served, especially in Libya and later in the Palestinian Territories."

In her forties, back in the U.S., Ruth became a psychiatric social worker. In addition to an active clinical practice, she was a pioneer in campaigning against spousal and other domestic abuse in Westchester County. (For those of you who don't know, that's a suburban county north of New York City; part of it is fancy shmancy and it also has middle-class neighborhoods and towns and pockets of poverty; domestic abuse does not know class lines.) Ruth was a founder of the Women's Justice Council, which lobbies the police and courts for justice for victim-survivors of domestic abuse and and provides childcare and other support to them while they are pursuing their rights. (I'm paraphrasing Richard's letter here.)

Ruth was a founder of My Sister's Place, a Westchester County shelter for victims of abuse. The family has requested that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to that shelter.

Please remember Ruth Olver and her children and grandchildren in your prayers. Remember also John, who preceded her in death two years ago and who like her worked for the good of humanity. Remember also my parents, who have yet again lost a dear friend of their generation.

Facebook updates

A day at home writing after an intense half-week of teaching.

Thus lots of opportunity to procrastinate (or take comforting breaks, depending on your spin) on Facebook. Posted a lot of updates. They are a bit like haiku, just longer. This may be the day with the most updates since I started Facebooking. (Is that a verb? If not, it will be soon.)

I still dislike Facebook's changes of this summer with the change in the update formula. Silly. But like lemmings, we have all started talking about ourselves in the 3d person. Mostly.

Jane R. Link

Jane R. Today, the Right Reverend and Right Honourable Maya Pavlova, Feline Bishop Extraordinaire, is my supervisor.

Jane R. Sometimes it's good to take some time simply to breathe and observe.Even, or especially, in the midst of urgent concerns, policy discussion, and activism. Link.

I posted these next two to the blog way back; revisited the music to listen and shared them on FB today as I listened.

Jane R. Link.

Jane R. And a live version... J.S. Bach never gets old. All hail to the best of his ancient and recent interpreters. Link.

Jane R. has now hidden from her news feed Vampire Wars, Mafia Wars, FarmVille, Farmtown, Funky Flowers, Pirates, (Lil') Green Patch, 101 Eggs, YoVille, and Pillow Fights. I'll keep hiding these sorts of apps as they keep appearing. I do like reading your personal and news updates, though, all y'all.

Jane R. Thanks to Vince Masi for pointing out this article. And hey, that's my old friend Edward, the Exec. Director whom the article quotes! Link.

Jane R. was attacked by a thorny branch while mowing the lawn and has the scratches to show for it.

Jane R. wants to keep looking at the recently arrived photos of her 6-year-old great-nephew instead of working on the Big Tome... But we do our theology for our children, don't we? If it doesn't make the world better for them, it's not worth the time. Another picture to post above the desk. What a cutie. And I'm not biased or anything.


Jane R. is remembering her beloved friend David, now deceased (brain tumor, summer 2002), who rushed downtown (he worked midtown and lived on the Upper West Side) on September 11, 2001, to see if he could find his nephew, and who miraculously ran into him, alive.

Summer tunes: Ray Barretto, Tito Coro, and Ruben Blades, 1974! With a Tito Puente bonus.

What we've been listening to in the Acts of Hope study tonight: the Live 50th Anniversary double CD of Ray Barretto, "The Giant of Salsa."

What we've got for you: a 1974 piece, Ban Ban Quere, with Ray Barretto, Ruben Blades on vocals, and Tito Gomez on coro. Enjoy. '70s haircuts, oy! But the salsa is still tasty.

Note: I already had Latin jazz on the brain, and then heard a great piece on NPR earlier today with a tribute to Tito Puente. Transcript and audio here.

"In Afro-Cuban music, we've inherited this concept of being possessed by the music on the dance floor," [Bobby] Sanabria says. "The same thing used to happen in jazz ... But we have this concept that goes way back further in terms of having a spiritual experience on the dance floor. And when you hear the power of this band coming at you like a tidal wave, and with those rhythms percolating, it excites the human organism to its utmost. It's like being in ecstasy.

"I'm not saying it's better than sex, but it's close to it."

Go here and click on "El Rey del Timbal" on the left, suffer through the short NPR announcement, and you can hear the the whole song.

P.S. I'm trying to learn how to use the block quote feature, but I'm not quite there yet.

Friday puppy blogging

My grandmother Melanie loved animals. Cats, dogs, puppies, kittens -- I always remember her with some kind of animal in her arms or next to her. She also had a lot of children in her life: my mother and her four sibling plus hundreds of campers and former campers from the summer camp she and my grandfather founded in 1927 in Vermont. It was all boys at first and became the first private interracial camp in New England, if not the U.S. (the data are a little foggy). The camp became co-ed around the time of World War II. All of us, even my brother and I who lived overseas and couldn't come every summer, were campers and then counselors there.

I think this photo is from the 1950s, but I am not 100% sure. This is one of the ways I remember my grandmother -- full of life and with a puppy in her hands! In the later 1950s, when I first came to Vermont as a very little girl, there were two St. Bernards at camp; their names were Jack and Jill.

When my mother and her sibs were growing up, my grandmother tended to give the dogs names out of classical philosophy and mythology, e.g. Plato and Psyche.

Not sure whether this is a St. Bernard puppy; maybe one of you dog experts can tell me. Most of the other dogs in the family were smaller breeds. The cats were of all types. Most of us grandchildren, interestingly, have become cat people -- but this may have something to do with the fact that we are mostly urban, though maybe not, because one of my urban cat-people cousins has adopted a dog this last year, in middle age (he's middle aged, not the dog) and in Manhattan. Anyway, although I was terrified of dogs all through childhood and adolescence (except for the St. Bernards, who were sweet and placid) and developed allergies to cats (eventually just to some, not others, which is why Maya Pavlova and I get along fine - she is one of the others), you can see why both +Maya and I are multi-species-friendly.

And now you know where I get the dark eyes and eyebrows and prematurely white hair!

(Well, prematurely some years ago. Not any more since I am no longer pre-mature.)

My grandmother died during my first year in college, in March 1970, ten years to the day after my grandfather.

The photo was clearly taken up at camp during the summer. That's the huge camp dining hall behind my grandmother, and that's an Adirondack chair she's sitting in, wearing shorts and a summer top. I was one of the few 1950s and 1960s kids I knew who had a grandmother who wore shorts. (She also is the person who gave me my first Beatles record -- an LP from England on the Parlophone label.) During the year, my grandparents lived in Brooklyn, New York (this is why P.J. and I are sort of related), which according to my mother was almost rural during her childhood in the 1920s and 1930s. She remembers a dairy farm up the road! Times have changed. By the time I first visited Brooklyn in 1957 and then 1960, it was a big city, and as a little girl from Paris I thought it very strange. But that is a story for another day.