In Memoriam: Beth Reasoner

In early September, our community was dealt another heart breaking loss. Mohawk was blessed to have Beth Reasoner as a camper, CIT, counselor, Unit Leader and CIT Director. During her time at Camp, Beth touched the lives of children of all ages and enriched many of us who were lucky to call her friend. When Beth laughed everyone joined in, and she might break out in song anytime the spirit moved her.

Beth, or Elizabeth as she sometimes preferred to be called, was a force of nature. Her keen intellect, sense of humor, curiosity and fierce desire for justice are the qualities I cherish the most. Conversations with Beth around a campfire or table were animated and challenging. Not only did she have an opinion on many subjects, but she was often capable of bringing you around to her point of view.

Compassion for others was a quality she lived by. Beth became a psychiatric nurse and eventually became the Director of Medical Services at Walden House, an addiction-treatment center in San Francisco, California, before she retired. After one of our lunches in San Francisco, she took me on a tour of the facility and we had a giggle or two when she told me the building was previously a convent! We agreed that the good Sisters would have been proud.

Our condolences go out to her siblings Ann, Jane, Ellen and Jonathan. My friend, you will always be loved and missed by your Mohawk sisters. Rest in peace.

In the Camp Mohawk Alumni (Litchfield, CT) Facebook group, Mohawkers shared their remembrances of Beth:

Marlene Ostrow: I am so saddened to hear of Beth's passing. Although I was not close to her, her soul, spirit, and morality left a deep imprint on me as a teenager working at Mohawk.

Cappie Perras: Utterly devastating--Beth changed the entire trajectory of my life...in a good way. What a brilliant, refined mind, deep and caring soul,  incredibly great sense of humor, a passion for life...and a particularly finely-tuned moral compass Beth possessed. I was so fortunate to be Beth's good friend--with lots of hours spent together with her from the time I was 16 until I was 23. I will always treasure our many, many great conversations, bouts of hilarious laughter, and our travels together...among a host of other things.

My most unforgettable travel experience was a road trip with Beth, Cindy Morse, Amy Mezoff, and me. We drove down into the heart of Appalachia...Blackey, Kentucky...a severely impoverished backwoods coal mining community whose residents adored Beth. She'd lived in their community for a year when she was a college student doing an anthropology immersion experience. In that time, she'd gained their trust and affection. The entire community also opened themselves to us, strangers from a completely other very foreign world to them, because they trusted Beth. Anyone she called a friend had to be a good person like her (I wish!). 

What a woman, what a fine human being in her prime, and what a gifted teacher and "counselor."  May the road rise up to meet you, my beautiful friend...until we meet again.