In Memory

Phoebe Ann Russell (Sumner) - Class Of 1933

Phoebe Ann Russell (Sumner)

Phoebe Russell Sumner, 73, a 12-year resident of Santa Fe, New Mexico, died August 20, 1987, following a sudden illness. Before moving to Santa Fe, she resided in Mill Valley, California.

Phoebe was admired for her immense generosity and concern for peace and harmony. She was actively involved in the Santa Fe Mental Health Association, and on her own, found housing and jobs for the Vietnamese Refugees. Her greatest gift, however, was just being Phoebe, a lover of life and beauty, who touched everyone who knew her.

The Santa Fe New Mexican, August 24, 1987



 
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02/21/21 02:23 PM #1    

Susan Cowper (1961)

My mother, Dorothy Kelley Cowper, and Phoebe were best friends. They spent their high school/young adult years traversing nearby mountains and deserts, sleeping in canvas tents, spending long afternoons sketching, or packing up and heading out to another just spied vista. This was in the days when roads out to the middle of nowhere were just ruts and old jalopys were the only way to get there. They went out to Yosemite before there were any tourists paying day fees, camping with their boyfriends by lakes, no one else for miles, scaling down scary cliffs. Phoebe's older sister, Elizabeth, had the only cabin on Santa Rosa above old Palm Springs. Winters, the three girls used to hike up snowbound trails, wax their *wooden* skis, ski down, spend the rest of the afternoon hiking back up--who does *that* anymore?
Phoebe was an artist. She designed the fresco for the old So Pas auditorium in the arts and crafts style. Together, she and my mother painted it standing high up on wobbly scaffolding. Still have the design.
Phoebe always made you feel you were just the person she was waiting to see. That was her spirit, her life force.
She had two boys, the best kind of boys, creative, thoughtful, allowed to roam free. Together, Terry and Renny wrote and published a book that became a cult bestseller, still garnering raves to this day, On the Loose. On the inside cover, their dedication: "To Ma, who worried."
On one of their adventures rafting on the Colorado river a terrible accident took Terry's life. A tragedy that affected us all deeply. Phoebe mourned that son all her life, but set herself steadfast to bring life and regard and goodness to others who struggled with their own inner sorrows. That was her way.
Pheobe was one of the best grown ups of my childhood. I wish she was still around. I'd get on my scooter and roll by for cookies and mint tea. We could sit outside by the kumquat tree and talk about it all while the sun took its lazy course down over Los Angeles.

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