In Memory

Olive Wilbur (Waugh) - Class Of 1944

Olive Wilbur (Waugh)

Olive Wilbur Waugh died peacefully at home surrounded by her family and caregivers on May 2, 2014 due to complications from lung cancer. 'Babs' was born in Berkeley, California on August 26, 1926. In 1929 she went with her parents to Tashkent, Uzbekistan (then known as Turkistan) for two years, returning to Berkeley in 1931. She graduated from South Pasadena High School in 1944 and received a BS from Stanford University with a degree in biology in 1948. She attended University of Pennsylvania Medical School for two years.

In 1949, Babs married John Gamble of Boise, Idaho. After he received his MD from the University of Pennsylvania they moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan where he completed his residency and Babs took care of their two daughters. In 1955 the family moved to San Francisco. She did volunteer work at the hospital and at the schools her daughters attended and began a life-long interest in libraries at the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. 

From 1968 to 1973, Babs worked as a research physiologist, studying the effect of frequently used drugs on ventricular arrhythmogenic mechanisms. In the 70s and early 80s she volunteered at Enterprise for High School Students where she started MAP, the Medical Apprenticeship Program for high school students interested in exploring careers in medicine; the career exploration program expanded into many fields and is still a popular program offered today to high school students throughout San Francisco. In 1984 she developed Project Read at the San Francisco Public Library, one of the first literacy programs in California for English speaking adults. She retired in 1989.

During her life she served on the board and as president of Pacific Presbyterian Women's Auxiliary and Enterprise for High School Students. She was also on the boards of Edgewood, the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, the Library Foundation, and the Stanford Women's Club of San Francisco. She was a member of the Town and Country Club, and Parachutist's Book Club and writing group which she enjoyed immensely, not only because her love and reading and creative writing but because of the remarkable women in the group.

Her husband John Gamble died in 1990. She married Richard Waugh in 1992 and moved to his home in Los Altos Hills where she embraced his large family with pleasure. She continued her membership in Parachutist's and in its writing group, publishing along with others two collections of memoirs, The Subject of Our Lives and Make Pickles Read Proust.

Throughout her life she was an avid traveler, returning to the Tashkent of her childhood for a tour of Central Asia, admiring giraffes and other animals in Africa, and seeking out ruins everywhere from Athens to Angkor Watt. She enjoyed cooking for family and friends, played sporadic bridge over the years and loved to walk with friends in the hills of the Bay Area.

Babs is survived by her husband Richard Waugh and her two daughters, Priscilla (Paul) Slocum of Middlebury, Vermont, and Lea Gamble of Tiburon, California; and one grandson.

San Francisco Chronicle, May 11, 2014