Elizabeth Mayers
Elizabeth K. Mayers of Santa Fe died peacefully on December 5, 2005 at age 70, with family members at her side.
She was born Elizabeth Anne Knoff on June 21, 1935 in Meriden Connecticut, the eldest child of Dr. Gerald Everett Knoff and Dorothy Cooper Knoff. Raised in Iowa and Illinois, she graduated from the University of Delaware with a degree in elementary education in 1957 and taught school in New Jersey for three years before returning to graduate studies at the School of International Service of American University in Washington DC. In 1962, she was awarded both a Masters Degree in East Asian Area Studies and the Alan Brunner Memorial Prize as the outstanding student in the Social Sciences. Along the way she met her then husband-to-be, Ken Mayers, in the late registration line. They were married two days after her graduate school graduation.
Her son Bill and daughter Catherine were both born in Okinawa, Japan, in
1964 and 1966 respectively. Living in Berkeley CA during the late Œ60s and early 70¹s, she focused her energy on raising her children, but when the family moved to Vermont in 1973 she resumed both her teaching career and her political activism. She was the founder of the Bennington chapter of the Beyond War movement which, by the time she moved to New Hampshire in 1987, had the largest per capita membership of any chapter in the country. After moving to New Hampshire she left public school teaching and worked for 12 years in private tutorial centers, with students ranging from "reading readiness" to SAT preparation and adults working on the GED¹s. Her ability to tune in immediately to the needs of individual students was absolutely magical. In addition, she continued her Beyond War activities and also housed Democratic campaign workers during the Presidential Primaries in 1992 and 1996. These workers Meeghan Prunty, Jim DeMay, and Clark Finley became part of her extended family.
In 1999 the family settled in Santa Fe, where Elizabeth started her own tutorial service. In her spare time she supported the Howard Dean campaign and helped found the Santa Fe Chapter of Veterans for Peace. Over the past 6 years she has tutored about two dozen students, all of whom have benefited by her magic touch. She regarded them not only as students, but as "her children," loving them all and being loved both by them and by their parents. But even more than that, she loved being ³Mom² to Catherine and Bill, a "virtual Mom" to niece Susan, Diana Barnard (Bill's wife), and Ed Fenner (Catherine's partner) and "Nana" to her grandchildren ‹ Ruby Mae Barnard-Mayers, Zaidie Cooper Barnard-Mayers, and Anna Tyler Brent as well as to her grand-nieces, Emma, Abby, and Molly Braun. Happily, in her final months she was able to enjoy visits from all her children and the "Nana-lovers" -- including a wonderful "early Christmas" just a little more than a week before she died.
If Elizabeth can find a way to influence the outcome of the 2006 and 2008 elections from "the other side," she will undoubtedly try to do so.
A memorial service celebrating her life will be held at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Santa Fe on Saturday, January 7. Those who wish to honor her memory can do so by a contribution to Heifer International
(www.heifer.org).