From Sara Marsico

Dear Maggi,

I just learned of Shona's passing. I remember that your parents were so proud of her, her experiences and her life. My thoughts are with your father, Jim (my mentor at Berkeley), Celia and you.

My deepest sympathies, Sara

From Carolyn North Strauss

Dearest Maggi, Celia and Jim,

We just learned of Shona's passing, and we are devastated with the news. Our hearts are with you all, and with Shona herself. We knew her mostly as a little girl - that tender, beautiful child whose face was sunshine. (I recall once saying to Celia how beautiful her girls were, and she replied, "Yes, they are, aren't they? No reason to be modest - they are truly beautiful.")

But I, Carolyn, had a connection with her much later on that perhaps none of you knows about. It was when I learned she had become a medievalist - which I, probably not known by all of you - once was also. So I invited her over when she was in town, and we spent a happy and excited afternoon talking medieval art, and Romanesque sculpture, and places in Europe and gossip of scholars. It was amazing to me to be having that conversation with someone I had known as a child! I mean, nobody in California (I thought) had any notion of medieval France! So we gabbed excitedly, and when she left I handed her a stack of my journals from the Centre d'Etudes Medievales, where I had studied in France. From her point of view, they were a treasure, I think, a rare find. From my point of view, I was passing them on into the hands of the next generation.

Herb and I wish you comfort and care.
With love and sweet memories -
Herb and Carolyn

From Ruth Senturia

As a little kid, Shona loved all things British. Or so it seemed back then. Her favourite music: The Beatles.

Shona and Ruth: Woolsey St.We shared some very good years. Our three families lived just a couple houses apart—the Kellys, the Alexanders, and the Senturias. We three older girls—Shona, Leslye, and I—played and played. Our younger sisters Maggi, Megan, and Martha—played and played. Our parents parented us all and became friends in their own right. The day the Kellys moved away was a loss.

Back in those early years, Shona and I used to go to Sheila Keppel for pottery classes. At one point Shona decided an Egyptian Pharaoh was going to be her project with clay. Which was beyond me—young kids didn’t ordinarily take to ancient civilizations. Later in high school we shared four exceptional years of Latin classes with Mr Mulholland and Mrs Small. Shona’s love of modern dance was perhaps her antidote to all things old.

Shona knew what she liked. And there was always something that she was enthusiastic about. When we’d get together, sure enough, she’d be brimming with excitement about her latest new found passion. Shona never worried what anyone else thought. She had no need to impress. Or question herself. She was comfortable in her skin, and knew what made her happy. Early on she knew she wanted to be a professor. Academics were her love, but she was refreshingly unacademic in her enthusiasm for life beyond academia.

We kept in touch after high school, though only minimally since I wasn’t in the US much after that.. I visited her at UC Davis, and later passed through Denver enroute to India. I’d drop a line every so often, and she made sure I received a copy of her  annual letter.  These past couple years I tried to get to Red Hook and she tried to meet me in western NY—to no avail.

I first met Randy when Shona brought him to my Dad’s in Berkeley/Oakland. Randy was in my good books for figuring out that Shona was a good catch. I knew he was an economics professor in those years, but only of late have I come across his articles with Bill Black, and then come to appreciate that he’d studied under Hyman Minsky. (I was rather excited to stumble upon “Randall Wray’s” articles on the internet this past year, and was planning to write Shona about this.)

The quality in Shona that stood out for me over the years—even when she was a kid: she never could speak ill of anyone. When she didn’t like something, at most one might detect some frustration. But she could only get so far in expressing herself and then she’d stop, because she was simply unable to cross that line of actually criticizing a person or saying something bad of them. To this day I find this to be truly exceptional.

Over the years I’d hoped that my husband could meet her, and that I could meet her kids. And I became more determined that we should get together latest by next year when we’d turn 50.

Maggi, thank you for making this blog possible. My heart goes out to you, and Jim & Celia, and Randy and the kids.  In particular, I hope the kids will have had enough years with Shona to have inherited all that she wanted for them to be able to stand on their feet. And yes, Randy, you have big shoes to fill. To your credit.

Ruth Senturia

From Rachel Houck

Berkeley Woman

I only met Shona a few times while I was hangin' out with her sister, Maggi, in and just after high school. I just wanted to note after reading a bunch of these memories, that Shona never lost the Berkeley in her :D Shona's independence, her dancing to her own drum, her not caving in to wearing the 'in' styles of Italy and wearing what was comfy to her, her ability to stay her own person despite such a close marriage and family... all those things, and more, were the Berkeley in her. It was nice to read and see it peeking through in everyone's posts. My heart goes out to her family and friends.

From Ginger Alexander

Shona over many years

I met Shona when she was two years old.  She was a delightful child who was very tolerant of her little sister's "melt downs".  She had a very far reaching and high little voice and I thought at that time that we had a future opera diva in our little girls.  But I was wrong, instead we had a future medieval scholar, that we would all still love but not understand the Latin that was the language of her subject field.

My heart goes out to her family and our neighborhood families that loved Shona and the other little girls that were so much the very heart of  our lives at the time.  I have the fondest memories of Shona as a toddler, a teenager, a young adult and especially a mother herself - I loved her in all of these stages of her short  life.  I want to say how very heartbroken I am for  Randy, Shane, Elina, Celia, Jim and and especially for Mags and Brian.  She is/was a light in our lives.

You are all in my hearts and always will be. And Tommy too. Ginger