Betty Lou Anthony died August 9 at age 89.
She was born 90 years ago today, on Friday, September 13, 1929, at the beginning of the Great Depression. Being a child of this era she learned frugality, perseverance, and a great deal of common sense.
Betty Lou was an ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church and served for more than 30 years. She ministered to the native people of Alaska, accompanying the bishop of Alaska to remote Alaskan villages in bush planes, touching down on makeshift landing strips.
Former Claremont resident Jeanne Variell Stott Chippendale died August 25 at the age of 94.
Jeanne was born March 9, 1925 in Golden, Colorado to Helen Variell Cole and Charles Edwin Stott. Prior to her mother’s death from tuberculosis when she was four, she was sent to live with her maternal grandparents, Ina and Walter Scott Cole, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she would grow up.
Ellen Catherine Carlson died peacefully in her sleep at her home in Claremont on August 25. The daughter of the late James J. and Evelyn McQuaid, Ellen was born March 3, 1932, in Los Angeles. She grew up in Glendale, attended Bellarmine-Jefferson grade school and high school in Burbank, and graduated from Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles in 1954.
Artist, pianist, special education paraprofessional. Robert Grigsby, Jr., age 71, died Sunday, August 18 at home. He grew up in Temple City, California, and was a 1966 graduate of Arroyo High School in neighboring El Monte.
Gwendolyn Lytle, who led a distinguished career as a vocal soloist and college professor at the University of California, Riverside and Pomona College, died August 22 in Claremont, after a courageous battle with liver cancer. She was 74.
Beloved sister, aunt, colleague, teacher and friend, her life was dedicated to family and education. Her musical performances included operatic roles, art songs and, her specialty, Negro spirituals.
Longtime resident of Claremont Katie Selke died at home July 12, surrounded by her family.
Born during the Depression in rural Texas, she lived through the howling windstorms of the Dust Bowl era. In her teen years she moved with her father and paternal grandmother to Lubbock, Texas.
Some of her fondest childhood memories were visiting her mother’s family on the farm and listening to her grandfather play the fiddle.
Reuel Peirsol Witherell, also known as “Rudy,” died at home in San Clemente on July 13.
Reuel was born April 6, 1928 to James and Cleda Peirsol of Pomona, where she grew up and in 1946 graduated from Pomona High School.
She married the love of her life, Frank Witherell Jr., on June 1, 1951, after graduating from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a bachelor’s degree in kindergarten primary education. On their first date, at Santa Barbara’s Miramar Hotel, a palm reader told them they were “born lovers.” This proved true in their 66 years of marriage.
