shona kelly wray

Shona Kelly Wray: November 9 1963 - May 6 2012

Beloved mother, wife, friend, sister, daughter, cousin, niece, and colleague has died. She was with family and friends. I have put together this site to collect memories, photographs, and stories about her.  If you have something you would like posted on the blog, please contact me at the Contact Me page.

Memorial ceremonies for Shona have been held in Florence, Italy, Kansas City, MO, and Berkeley, CA.  There have also been conferences in her memory. Some of these are listed here.

Memorials and events:

• Roisin Cossar, Christina Neilson and Filippo de Vivo organized a conference in Shona's memory at the University of Manitoba  September 12 & 13, 2014. See Christina's comments on the event here.
• We had a celebration of Shona's life at her family's home in NY State on Saturday August 10, 2013.
• The February 2013 Mid-America Medieval Association (MAMA) Conference will be dedicated to Shona.  Friends and colleagues are already planning sessions on Bolognese history, the Black Death, women and families.  The conference was held at UMKC the last weekend in February, 2013.
• The History Department at UMKC organized a memorial service for Shona on Thursday, August 23, 2012 4 pm at the Pilgrim Chapel in Kansas City.  UMKC faculty and students, as well as Kansas City friends, were there.
• We held a memorial for Shona in Berkeley CA on Saturday, August 4 2012, at Julia Morgan's "Little Castle" in Berkeley: the Berkeley City Club. More information about that gathering is here.
  
• On Thursday, June 14 2012, Early Music at I Tatti, a concert in the Limonaia of the Villa I Tatti, was dedicated to the memory of Shona, esteemed scholar and beloved colleague.
• We held a memorial gathering on Thursday, May 10 2012, at the Villa I Tatti. Many friends and I Tatti fellows were there.
  
• At the same time as the I Tatti gathering, a group from the Archivio di stato di Bologna who were unable to attend the memorial at I Tatti joined together in the square outside the archive to celebrate Shona's longstanding presence in the archive. A photograph is here.
• The Department of History UMKC organized a gathering on Tuesday, May 8 2012, at the home of Dept Chair Gary Ebersole.

Commemorative websites:

• I am collecting web notices about Shona here.
• An essay by Jonathan Nelson introducing a new online exhibition on Bernard and Mary Berenson at the I Tatti has been dedicated to Shona.
• The Villa I Tatti has posted on their webpage a tribute to Shona.
• Roisin Cossar has written a lovely piece for The Medieval Review on Shona's work. Shona was an Editor of TMR from 2008-2012.

Scholarship or travel funds being set up in Shona's name:

• The UMKC History department is planning to sponsor a scholarship fund in honor of Shona.  Here is a website link in case you want to donate to this. Put "Shona Kelly Wray Memorial Scholarship fund" in the comments.
• The MAMA folks also would like to start an endowment fund for student travel grants—this was something Shona was passionate about. I will follow up on details.