While always curious, I wasn’t a stellar student, missing a lot of school for various reasons such as illness, a different learning style, and detached parents. My great good fortune was that I was accepted at Shipley in 1967. Our mother and her sister (whom I am named after) both went to Shipley in the early ’30s.

Mother realized I was generally not doing well in my home and school environments, and so we went through the application and interview process. Our father told me I probably wouldn’t “get in.”  I was apprehensive but was drawn to Mrs. Epes’s equanimity and kindness. She could be stern but also fair and compassionate.  Shipley provided a structure where I got the support and encouragement that was lacking at home and at my previous schools.

I have always found the school motto to be very eloquent and inspirational, and it has become increasingly more important to me as I age. Our present world is in desperate need of both Courage and Grace.

I shudder to think where I would be had I not been able to attend Shipley, and that inspires me to give back. Shipley’s foundational values are the Quaker Ideals such as Peace, Equality, Integrity, Reverence for Nature, and Service, to name but a few. They were of great importance in the ’60s for the Peace, Women’s & Equal Rights Movements and are more important than ever today.

While it is a vastly different place than 55 years ago, its values have not changed and that is why Shipley is in my estate plan. I want other young women and men to have a similarly supportive education to go out into the world to do good.