Robert C. Roper

I was fortunate to know Elaine in her radiant youth.  She made friends easily, devoted friends.  She had a wicked earthy sense of humor.  She was kind but not treacly.  Her large family, from the DC suburbs, was Quaker.  She studied German and art history at Swarthmore.  

Before Swarthmore, she attended George School, where relatives of hers were also students.  Her senior year she played Emily in “Our Town.”  She was strongly inclined toward the arts, though at Swarthmore I don’t remember her being in plays.  She laughed her head off during the Charlie Chaplin seminars staged by Prof. Peter van de Kamp, of the Astronomy Dept.  In 1965 she knitted me a thick green sweater that fit me perfectly.  

Friends of hers may remember that Phil Robertson, of whom we as a class have not heard for far too long, was a great companion of Elaine’s.  Phil returned to New Zealand after graduation, to pursue an acting career.  Elaine was with him in Australia for a time.  In the early 70s, she was working for Rudy Komon, a Melbourne art dealer, and in his gallery met Leonard French, an Australian artist.  Born 1928, French incorporated Melanesian imagery in much of his work.  His stained-glass ceiling in the National Gallery of Victoria is a national treasure.  Visitors to the Gallery are said often to lie down flat on their backs, to take it in.  

Elaine and Leonard married in 1974.  About their long life together, during which two daughters were born, then two granddaughters, I know only from a few articles in Australian newspapers.  Elaine taught art history and brought order to French’s art business.  One of her younger cousins, Melanie Wright Tripp, wrote a reminiscence of Elaine that captures something of her presence:

Elaine was my cousin, our mothers were sisters.  As a child, I loved spending summer days at her family's home in the Washington, DC suburbs where we'd play and swim at the community pool in the daytime, and catch fireflies at night….She was very pretty, smart, and popular.
All of the family in the States missed Elaine when she moved to Australia….I remember her mother visiting her a few times and coming back with many pictures of little Sarah and baby Amy.  Elaine visited the States [in 1988] and came to my house for a few days.  I so enjoyed being with her again and getting to know her daughters.  She was a wonderful mother…it was a coincidence that an old artist friend of Leonard's happened to live in my small community.  She phoned him and we invited him over so they could catch each other up….Another day, she took the train in to NYC, went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and found works Leonard had done years ago and were in keeping at the Met.  I looked up to her…admiring her abilities and love of life.

It is not only that she lived so far away, and that we fell out of touch, that makes me experience her loss as something wrong with the world.  Rest in peace.

Bud Roper

Susan Knotter (Walton)

What a lovely tribute to Elaine, Bud.  It stirs in me memories of her from the two years I was at Swarthmore.  She was so vital, so easy to talk to, full of curiosity and fun!

Your sadness at losing touch kindles in me similar feelings-- about Elaine, and about our unique cohort.  There is, for me, a strong sense that the members of our our class were brought together for a reason, at a turning point in our national history, and we have much to learn from one another's stories and life journeys. 

In particular, I regret that I was unaware that Elaine had moved to Sydney and then Heathcote, near Melbourne. If I had known, I could perhaps have reconnected with her there, during the late 80's and early 90's, when I visited Australia numerous times due to my husband's business, and fell in love with the country.  From your description, it sounds as though Elaine thrived there, found meaning, growth and happiness.  A life lived to the fullest.  Brava.

Robert C. Roper

Thanks for your beautiful response, Sue.  Most hopeful and kind.

I too was in Australia, but just once, on a tight schedule for a job, so I never got to look for Elaine.

I hope you're well and having a good spring.

James Waters

Bud, we haven't connected for many years, so, thanks. Though I did not know her myself, reading your words and the comments of others, I'm reminded that I do know the sense of the world not being right when someone leaves. It's disorienting, and disconcerting. Certainly, if it's someone important in one's life, we confront it directly. And, you are also right; the loss is important in a different, sometimes more disconcerting way if we were not aware of it. Sometimes it seems things move too fast. The larger perspective, that "the bell tolls for thee," both attenuates and sharpens matters, but doesn't help me, at least not at the time. Later, it does help, but in a very different, much less connected way. And the ones I know, and those I discover, jarringly, after missing them at the time, happen more often these days. For me, that's truly unwelcome. The sharing does, however, help.

Jim Waters

Meredith J. Jones

I got to know Elaine well during our junior year and she became one of my closest friends at Swarthmore.  She was smart, fun loving and adventurous. After Swarthmore we both moved to Washington, D.C. where she and Phil Robertson got married in the smallest church wedding I have ever attended (5 people, including Elaine and Phil).  Sadly for me, she and Phil moved to New Zealand and then to Austraila.  The last time I saw Elaine was in the mid to late 70s when she came to New York. She was full of happiness about her life and relationship with Leonard French and it's a nice way to remember her.  Over the years we lost touch -- Australia is a long way away.  We emailed briefly in 2016.  She wrote that Leonard had had a bad stroke, but even though she didn't respond to my last email I mistakenly thought she was ok.  The news of her death has been very hard to take.  I always thought we would meet again. 

Emily Albrink (Hartigan)

Thank you, Dith, for the lovely comments. You helped me be clear that she was with Phil for a while, and that her loss is --- again, again, again -- a challenge for us to wend our way through the mystery of the liminal space we inhabit.                  I hope that we can hold each other in the Light, as the Quakers say, and experience the abundance of Love even as we grieve.