Arabella Hufbauer

Arabella Hufbauer, born in Pescadero, CA, on May 2, 1914, and a member of Berkeley (CA) Meeting for 35 years, died in Berkeley on January 26, 2005. The oldest child of Ernest McKee, a lumberman , and Norine Clark McKee, a rancher’s daughter, both from Humboldt County, Arabella was raised along the Eel River, whose lush redwood groves she loved to remember.

She attended high school in the town of Fortuna until her junior year, when the family moved to San Mateo. Known to her classmates as Trixie, a nickname that she kept throughout life, she played center on the girls’ basketball team and earned the necessary grades to enter the University of California in architecture, enrolling in 1930 at the age of 16, which delighted her father. Her talents and vivacity made her a favorite with the architecture department’s faculty and students (mostly men). After receiving her M.A. in architecture in 1936, she married fellow-student Clyde Hufbauer from San Diego who had just received the program’s highest degree.

Arabella and Clyde set up household in San Diego where her three children were born, Karl in 1937, Gary in 1939, and Joyce in 1945. Clyde was an architect for the city’s school system, and they lived in modernist homes of their own design, a modest one in Mission Beach,CA, in 1939 and a larger one in La Jolla, CA, built in 1952. Arabella became estranged from Clyde, in part because of his opposition to her entry into architectural work, and their marriage ended in 1960.

Arabella moved to Berkeley, CA) in 1963, near her aging parents, and lived there for the remaining 42 years of her life. A talented oil painter, she opened an art gallery on University Avenue in the mid-1970s. She carried out apartment renovations in Albuquerque, NM, and house renovations in Berkeley, but regarded being a homemaker as her chief occupation. She brought an exquisite aesthetic sense to bear in her several living environments. She played a profound shaping role in a large social network of family and friends.

Arabella joined Berkeley Friends Meeting in 1970, and participated in it regularly for the rest of her life. She served on the hospitality and visiting committees of the Meeting and was a regular member of the Meeting’s "older women’s group" which began in the early 1980s and continues to the present. Friends in that group remember her faithful and enthusiastic participation in FCL bazaars in the 60s and 70s and her astute suggestions about architectural design and aesthetic decisions in the Meeting over the years. Very near the end of her life, Arabella came from her bed to the Meeting House to consult on the colors for the new bench cushions being donated by Pat Stewart.

In 2004, two of her granddaughters put on a gala party for Arabella’s 90th birthday at Berkeley’s St. John’s Presbyterian Church, which she sometimes attended with her daughter. Nearly one hundred family members and friends celebrated with her— one from as far away as London. She roused a great cheer when she ended her own short talk by saying, "I’m looking forward to my nineties."

She is survived by her brothers Ernest McKee, Jr. of Ukiah and Robert McKee of Santa Clara, her sons Karl and Gary Hufbauer and daughter Joyce Caproni, five grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

Berkeley Meeting will remember her friendliness and her pixie-ish nature, which made everyone enjoy being with her. o

We will miss her smile and ever-encouraging voice. She is with us still on the corner, at worship, and many occasions, if only in spirit. o

Tannisse Brown, a member of Claremont (CA) Monthly Meeting, died suddenly on August 18, 2005 at the Mt. San Antonio Gardens Retirement Community where she had lived the last five years. Born in Fargo, ND, April 27, 1925, Tannisse spent most of her youth in Missoula, MT. Once she completed her undergraduate work in humanities and journalism at Montana State University, she moved to California.

A desire to discover the world led her to San Francisco, CA,where she originally settled at the YMCA Residence Club. Her unusual personality led to her first writing job as she advertised her writing availability by printing and delivering messages on blotters which read: "I Take to Work Like This Blotter Takes to Ink." The California Farmer hired her, and she was assigned as a reporter, covering women’s issues. Some of her first assignments included articles on farm women in California and Nevada.  

Three years later Tannisse married an attorney, Clayton Rost, and transferred to the Los Angeles bureau of California Farmer but, after only two years, they moved to Eureka for cleaner air. Later, the family returned to the San Francisco Bay area. In time, the Rosts divorced.

Tannisse had a love for singing and, while raising her three children, began singing with the local chamber opera group. She was also interested in community affairs and assisted in starting a Unitarian Church in Eureka. Her political activism found her helping the Robert Kennedy campaign in the 60s.

Tannisse continued her education throughout her life, earning a Master’s degree in education and counseling from San Francisco State University. In 1977 she attended a Quaker Meeting where she met David Bruner. Her discovery of the Religious Society of Friends led to a spiritual journey and a long-lasting friendship. Interested in Friends’ beliefs of peace and equality, she traveled to Pendle Hill where she spent nine months.

Following her time at Pendle Hill, and at the age of 60, Tannisse received a Masters in Divinity from the Pacific School of Religion. Tannisse used her education and life experiences to counsel people at Mt. San Antonio Gardens, especially the young college students who work there. She had a skill for making friends and enjoyed helping others achieve their dreams.  Twelve years ago Tannisse was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy.  Even though she was confined to a wheelchair at the end of her life, she had great courage and always showed a positive and upbeat spirit.  She optimized what she could do and took advantage of any activities that could help her.  Along with this she remained cheerful and caring, and she retained a youthful beauty. Her presence will be missed.

Tannisse leaves three children, Martha Rost, Seattle;David Rost, Palo Alto; Amy Rost, Los Angeles; four grandchildren and her partner David Bruner, Claremont.

Brinton Turkle, well-known author and illustrator of children’s books, was born in 1915 in Alliance, Ohio. His parents were Edgar Harold and Ada Cassaday Turkle. Brinton attended Carnegie Institute of Technology from 1933 to 1936 and the School of the Boston Museum of Art from 1938 to 1940.

He and his wife Yvonne Foulton moved to Santa Fe, NM, from Ohio in 1948. They started their family here and Brinton pursued his career as a book illustrator. In 1959 he moved to New York City and began writing and illustrating children’s books. He returned to Santa Fe in the 1970s, again one of the mainstays of our Meeting, beloved by all of us.

Brinton’s contributions to our Meeting were manifold. He was firmly anchored in Quaker history and tradition. His vocal ministry was something we looked forward to, when he rose and stood straight and tall, in his William Penn hat and Navajo jewelry. His offerings were often anecdotal, usually amusing, and frequently outright humorous, even bringing laughter into our solemn midst. He exemplified reverence with a light touch, keeping us in balance when we were at risk of getting too serious, and giving us the gift of Quaker spirituality through stories. He was an advocate of a lower threshold for vocal ministry.

Brinton spent the last several years of his life in a retirement center, a round trip distance from Meeting of over a mile. He proudly walked this distance, declining any offers of a ride, and leaving immediately at the close of meeting, before announcements, in order to be back at the center for the mid-day meal. He consistently displayed a cheerful optimism even when enduring health setbacks in his last few years.

Brinton wrote and illustrated many popular children’s books, and also illustrated more than 100 books for other authors. One of his most loved and enduring books featured a Quaker boy, Obadiah, and his family living in Colonial Nantucket. Thy Friend, Obadiah won a Caldecott Medal of Honor in 1970 and was reviewed as "a perfect picture book about friendship". Other books in the Obadiah series included Rachel and 0badiah, Obadiah the Bold, and The Adventures of Obadiah.

He received many awards, including the Lewis Carrol Shelf Award and the Book World Award, and the Caldecott Medal of Honor. In 2001 he was honored by the state of New Mexico with the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts.

Martha died on April 5, 2005, in the loving care of friends, relatives, and neighbors. She went peacefully and with acceptance, and has left behind fond memories in the hearts of the many who loved her.

Born April 27, 1914, to missionary parents Theodore and Mildred Nasmith Witter, in Podili, (POH-DA-LA), S. India, Mary Millman died of polycystic kidney disease on January 7, 2005 in Eugene, Oregon. She was 90 years old.

A letter written at age 11 from boarding school, to her father, will help explain why this biography leans toward describing who Mary was, a little more than what she did. She wrote in part, "Dear Daddy….. I wish to form good character habits so please write a preachy long letter and tell me how to study, how to form a basis of plain living, in a right way so that people will like me and I will be the kind of person people like to have about. <Should you try to cultivate a quality you do not have?> Please tell me where I may improve." Mary never stopped trying and, I think, never really understood how far she had come in reaching her goal.

Her childhood was a mix of freedom, vitality, accomplishment, distress and desperation. As the oldest daughter of four, Mary enjoyed many pleasures usually, in those days, given only to a son …including extensive camping and hunting trips with her father. All the girls roller skated, did daily exercises on their third floor flat roof; enjoyed star-gazing; kite-flying; and other …more precarious feats unknown to their parents. There were numerous family performances, programs, and concerts…including stilt parades that caused their Indian neighbors to wonder if by chance all four children’s legs were broken. They played knee-deep in the mud of the bulrushes, slid down the sluice during irrigation time; and had <Butterkai> puff ball fights with the Indian boys. Pets abounded.

Strict discipline accompanied this play and freedom, with moral high ground the focus. There were dreaded head-washings with stinging native nut shampoos, painful scalp scrapings, and a kerosene rinse. And always, the need to be good…very good; the need to share their mother’s care and time with the compound’s native Indian boys; the need to accept fourth place in their father’s attention, after his work, after his wife, after his father.

As each girl reached her seventh year, she was sent to boarding school <Kodaikanai School> near Madras, India.

It was during these early years that Mary formed her first personal relationship with natural wonders… the constellations; the sun, moon, and ocean; the hills and mountains she climbed; the banyon trees whose wide, twisting, arms provided refuge; the Mulberry trees from which leaves were stitched together with fine twigs to form plates. She called the rivers and streams her sisters, the trees her cousins, and later the ocean would become her mother. The earth was her dwelling place. This love of nature continued to sustain her with solace and comfort through the aloneness and depression she experienced when, at 15, she was left in the United States for seven years, while the rest of her family returned to India after a furlough.

Mary was graduated from Wellsely College in 1935, and later earned a Master’s Degree in Library Science. She married Owen Booth, a free-spirited sign painter and cabinet maker, in 1937. Mary was pregnant when they moved to Taos, New Mexico, from New York City, not knowing a soul, but wanting their imminent twins, Heather and Annie, to know the natural world from birth. They lived two miles from the ancient Taos pueblo, while Mary was employed by the Taos county Project of the Harwood Foundation…a social experiment in cooperative living.. Mary’s 1941 Christmas card describes frequent dinner parties livened with everything from fiery political discussions, to jokes, to poker. She also was known as the lady who took early morning desert walks…always returning with a stone in her hand for her garden.

She "planted" those stones: they would catch air-born and flood-rushing- seeds and hold them long enough to root and flourish in the tough desert soil. Her love for nature expanded to incorporate the beauty, challenges, and mysteries of the high desert. Annual trips to the eastern shores with her teen-age daughters intensified her already strong connection with the ocean as mother.

Owen died of a sudden heart attack at Taos in 1973. After 36 years of marriage and two years as a widow, Mary met Arthur Millman at Pacific Yearly Meeting in Ben Lomand Quaker Center in California. They were married in Santa Rosa, California on Valentine’s Day, 1975. Arthur had taken early retirement from his work as a research mechanical designer. They were married almost 30 years before Mary’s death. They lived in Tuscon, Arizona and Newburg, Oregon, before settling in Eugene in 1985. Mary often spoke of how she appreciated Arthur’s teaching her a greater understanding of music.

Mary began her active membership with Friends in 1947 at West Chester Pennsylvania, later joining Santa Rosa Meetingin California; Pima Meeting at Tuscon, Arizone; the Multnomah Meeting in Portland, Oregon; and finally, The Eugene Friends Meeting. She lived out her belief that one should make a full commitment to one’s home Meeting by holding numerous offices and committee positions, by faithful attendance at Meetings for Worship for Business, and active participation in Meeting Events. She loved us well; she loved all of our children.

From her first published article at age 15, right up to her last year, Mary’s writings reflect a conscious application of her knowledge and regard for nature, to her sense of self…what she did, how she felt, and what she believed. She wrote book reviews, essays, articles, and poems for numerous Quaker publications, including "The Friends Journal," "Friendly Woman," "Friends Bulletin," "The Inward Light," and "What Canst Thou Say?." She was published in Daily Readings from Quaker Writings, Ancient and Modern, Vol. II . <edited by Linda Hill Renfer, 1995, Serenity Press>. She also was published in the Eugene Weekly and the Obsidian Bulletin.

Her love of the outdoors quickly had led her to the Obsidians. Between 1985 and 2000 she participated in 242 events, mostly hikes and summer camps….a significant accomplishment for which she received an award in February, 2004.

Mary had discovered Ras Dam in 1973. He stirred in her a great excitement about the difference between having to "do" and being able to "be." Over the years, his work and that of Thich Nhat Hahn, moved her to celebrate disciplines that lead to "the practice of presence." The small smile, expressions of gratitude, "one step at a time," became ways of life for her. Mary was thoughtful, seeking, helpful, always reaching out. Mary also was forthright, abrubt and challenging. She could scratch our rough spots.. We never wondered where she stood on an issue or what she felt. Yet, even in her greatest displeasures, her goal was to understand, to get back to a place of appreciation, to the smile, to one step at a time.

She wrote at 70, that she was less able to articulate her spiritual practice and experience than when she was 40. Diagnosed with kidney disease, she was moved to consider God’s will for her life. She wrote "I believe I am to enjoy life; to love; to give thanks; relate to others; to do what I can to alleviate any suffering I see around me." She added that she was contemplating "the void," imagining her life, at death, piled on a giant compost heap for future generations. She said her hardest job during her dying, would be to let go…. even of the hope not to appear "unseemly" in her final hours, or to be a burden to others….she wrote of how hard it is for many of us brought up to be self-reliant and service-oriented, to let go of being fully in charge; that "we have forgotten life itself was a gift; beyond our control."

Mary wrote this of the Memorial Meeting for Worship: "…. we experience the communion of spirit. For awhile we dwell in the eternal. We see how individuals derive a unique, personal, nature interpersonally through many relationships. We discover anew that we are all branches on the same vine. We need one another to be truly ourselves. As George Fox said, ‘We are written in one another’s hearts’." <Epistle 24-1652>

Mary…you are written in our hearts. We thank you for showing us a fine way to live and to die. I will remember, always, your words, spoken daily and often during your last weeks:

"I feel so happy!"

"This is such a wonderful feeling!"

"I am so grateful to my Arthur and all my friends."

"I feel such joy!"

You maintained your small smile, you took one step at a time, you expressed your gratitude…. all with elegant grace. We hope you know how much we loved "having you about."

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<Mary once changed her name to Amrita (water of life). She wrote this poem at Shahalie Falls

AMRITA

My chosen name: AMRITA, meaning water of life.

The ocean is my mother; my cousins newly met:

Rivers Nehalem, Yamhill, Yaquina and Umpqua –

All moving towards the sea.

One thing about water – one cannot hold it long

for it stagnates.

Amrita: continually moving, changing shape

Sometimes in unexpected transformation

A becoming beyond my limit and control.

Water of life, I thank you.