From Alice Perlmutter

Shona was one one of my closest friends. We met when she first moved to Red Hook and Alina was almost one and Shane was almost 3. Our children have known each other their entire lives. Shona was my one friend who was always up for an adventure. If I was headed off to NYC with my kids, I knew Shona would be the one come and bring her kids along. If we read or heard of an interesting place, Shona would be up for going.

One thing Shona really loved was the county fair. We started going when our kids were young and it was mainly for their entertainment. But as the kids got older, we still wanted to go and would just drag them along. Shona was not only interested in all the exhibits, but loved to go on the rides as well. She especially loved the ferris wheel and roller coaster. She would take my kids on the ferris wheel for me. And we never left the fair with out stopping at the 4H group milkshake booth, no matter how long the line.

Shona and I would take our kids camping together. She loved camping and was a great campsite cook. Always bringing something interesting and fun for the cookout.

Every year she when she came to Red Hook we would go on a hike to Bash Bish Falls, a nice waterfall nearby. The water was icey cold, but she was always the first person to jump in.

Another thing we would make sure to do every year was to go blueberry picking at Grieg Farm. She would always say, she had so much work to do, but she would have to have some of those blueberries and take the afternoon off.

I was always happy when summer came and she would come to Red Hook. I would get a text from her (if you know Shona, you know of her love of texting) saying she was in Red Hook and to come over.

We went to visit her in some of the many places she lived. We went to Kansas City, to Rome when she was there at the American Academy, and took our families on vacation together to the Island of Ponza and then we last saw her when we went to visit in Florence last December.

My children were very close to her and are devastated. She was a lot of fun and had a great heart. I will miss her all the time.

My love goes out to Randy, Shane and Alina.

From Randy Wray

SHONA and Me

We met in Rome in August 1986 at a gathering of all Fulbrighters to Italy; as we were the only two located in Bologna it was inevitable that we’d become acquaintances. She was the Italy enthusiast, and having already lived in the country a year she was well-connected and fluent. Other than a stint teaching elementary and high school in Mexico City, I’d never been anywhere. I had just struggled through a last-ditch effort at a year of Italian at Washington University (with Hyman Minsky sitting in the class—at least he made me look good by comparison!) after I found out that Jan Kregel had moved to Bo from the Netherlands. I’d been forced to watch Fellini films in college and knew second or third generation Italians in California and had no interest in spending a year there. So I was disappointed, and wanted to bail-out of the Fulbright—but Minsky told me I MUST GO! Minsky insisted that Italy is paradise and I reluctantly packed—prepared for the worst.

I was wrong, of course.

Click to read more ...