In 2012, at the Kfeirian Reunion in Charleston, WV, an $8,500.00 check was presented to the Kferian Reunion Foundation for scholarships. The gift was to honor the memory of Alice Tamam Bassett Rutherdale, and was given by her four living children: Nancy Griffith, Martha de La Soujeole, Jan Rutherdale and Jay Rutherdale.
The tribute below was delivered by Abe J. Bassett at the Celebration of Life for Alice on Sunday, May 29, 2011 in Sacramento, California.
ALICE TAMAM BASSETT RUTHERDALE
To celebrate the life of Alice Tamam Bassett is why we are here this morning. Alice’s spirit is but a little way above our heads. If you will listen carefully, you can hear her say, “Thank you, My Family, for being here today.”
Her long life was at times exciting, challenging, productive and difficult. She was in turn a dutiful daughter, an excellent student, a dedicated mother and wife, a musician, a cryptologist and a biology teacher. She was our mother, our grandmother, our great-grandmother, our mother-in-law, our sister and our inspiration.
Alice was born Tuesday, October 11, 1921 between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m., at 410 Dickinson Street, Williamson, WV. I was born in the same town, same house, and almost exactly nine years later in 1930. We were both born under the sign of Libra.
My relationship with my sister Alice contributed in important ways to my development. Her lifelong encouragement inspired me to look forward and to work hard. She was my mentor, my pacesetter, and an inspiration.
Alice was one of five older sisters—the fourth of five girls in our family—but perhaps the one whom I thought of as my “big sister,” the sister who instructed and guided me. When I wrote to her in 1987, I said, “you took me under your wings.” One of my earlier memories was when I was about six and Alice 15. Lorraine and I were walking side by side with Alice when we came to a ladder on the sidewalk, forcing us to break ranks and walk on either side of the ladder. To do so was to cause bad luck and in order to break the hex that would befall us for being split apart; both persons must simultaneously say the magic phrase “bread and butter.” But Alice went one step further to say the magic words were “brown bread and butter.”
With respect to good manners, she said I should always speak first to an older person, increasingly difficult to do these days. And she told me to always open a door for a girl or a woman. When I was seven and Alice 16, I thrilled to see her marching in the high school band. Her instrument was the largest in the band---the bass horn. I marveled that she could carry such a heavy load, not knowing the horn was hollow. But it was heavy enough that our mother Rahija built a shoulder pad to make her load less of a burden.
It greatly pleased our father that Alice was an excellent student and a huge help to him by working at Bassett’s Confectionary. When Papa suffered a heart attack in 1938, Alice ran the confectionary for three weeks, opening it up in the morning and closing it at night. She was 16 years old. At 17 years and seven months of age, in May 1939, she graduated from Williamson High School, and Papa rewarded her with a graduation gift of $35. Alice’s first impulse was to buy a lifetime subscription to the Readers Digest, but Papa suggested a better use for the money. The gift was applied to summer term tuition at Concord College in Athens, WV. Alice never again lived at home except for brief vacations from school.
At the end of her freshman year at Concord, she enrolled for summer school at the University of Michigan, returning to Concord in the fall. Amazingly, her music teachers encouraged her to transfer to Marshall College in Huntington, WV, to take advantage of a much stronger music program. Can you imagine a situation where teachers encourage their best student to study at another institution? Alice did transfer and subsequently graduated with a Bachelor’s of Music Education degree, three years out of high school.
Without missing a beat, she began graduate studies that summer at Michigan and then accepted a one-year teaching contract at Cassopolis Michigan High School. She returned to the University of Michigan in June of 1943 and in February 1944 received a Master of Music degree. Amazingly, at age 22 years and four months, she had a Bachelor’s degree, a Master’s degree, and one year of teaching experience.
I would like to place Alice’s education in the context of education for women in the first half of the last century and in the context of her family’s values. When I began my teaching career in 1960, many of my students were the first to go to college. That is even true today and it was especially true in the 1930s.
My father had only three years of schooling and my mother only two years. However, both could read and write Arabic and both taught themselves to read and write in English. My mother Rahija learned English by studying her children’s schoolbooks, and that is the way she learned to play the piano. Among my most prized possessions are their letters and notes written to me. During the depression, unemployment was very high, and income was very low. Educating girls was not a high priority, except in my family.
All six of the Bassett children were either born during or graduated from high school in the depression years. Among them they earned one two-year teaching certificate, four bachelor’s degrees, three master’s degrees and two doctorates. Of the six, five became teachers. Alice, arguably the brightest of the six, is a product of two remarkable parents who esteemed education for their children.
The spring after graduation from Michigan, Alice did two remarkable things. First, she became a substitute biology teacher at Williamson High School, and she joined the Army. In one of the letters she wrote to me while I suffered my Army basic training, she bemoaned that her basic training was exceedingly boring. However she was never again bored as her next army assignment was to the Signal Corps Intelligence unit in Washington, DC. She became a cryptologist; only the brightest of the bright could hope to have such an elevated assignment. She eventually became a Sergeant, but was discharged three weeks after earning her third stripe; however, she was immediately rehired as a civilian to continue her work as a code breaker. Her high civil service rating was well paying.
It was in Washington that she met Jack Rutherdale. They were married February 1946 and by the end of the year were living in California. When I was 16, my parents gave me permission that summer to visit Alice and Jack; I stayed nearly two months, living in San Carlos and El Cerrito in married student’s house for University of California Berkeley students.
Traveling alone at a young age was not unusual in our family. When Alice was barely 14, Papa allowed Alice to travel alone to visit Bassett relatives in Welch, WV, a family of all boys close to the age of my sisters. She wrote to her sister Selma, in October 1935, “she spent the weekend in Welch and had plenty of fun.” Selma was sworn to never reveal the greatest secret of that weekend: “I’ve determined to marry Clement Bassett . . . but he doesn’t know it yet.”
I saw Alice as bold and adventuresome, extremely intelligent, very positive and gracious. I admired my sister for going off to college, going off to war, instructing me in Emily Post dictums, teaching me to play bridge, and for welcoming me into her home on many occasions. She was always glad to see me, and always equipped with kind words of encouragement. I think she liked me.
When I went to college and later after college to the service, we corresponded frequently. She saved many of my letters and me hers. In the past few weeks I have read through those letters.
When I was in the Army she encouraged me to “be the best I could be” which may be where the Army found their slogan. She also taught me her method of memorizing numbers, such as my army serial number. She said, “mine was melodious.” All I had to do was to set it to music, letting the numbers correspond to notes on the treble clef---do re me fa so.
52 235 055 = So, Re, Re, Me, So, X, So, So.
When we discussed our tastes in music and she told me that Beethoven’s late quartets were perhaps the most sublime of all music. That encouraged me to listen carefully to these works and to come to total agreement about their sublimity and her musical judgment.
In 1953, when I was in the Army in Okinawa, and Alice was the mother of three children, we had several exchanges discussing Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead.” I extolled Howard Roark’s individualism, but Alice brought me down to earth making me focus on the superficiality of the main characters in the melodramatic story.
In June and July of 1953, Alice wrote to me eight times, a letter a week. In one letter she said, “Your letter was an excellent justification of your education . . . you made me proud of you....” “In a letter I wrote to her I said, “Your answers to my questions were beautiful, and intelligent…. You did a fabulous analysis.” Alice and I corresponded even when she was at Agnew State Hospital in 1958, telling me that she was progressing well in her treatment. This positive attitude was characteristic of Alice, for she always said, in response to my inquiry about her health, that she was doing just fine.
In Alice’s years following her illness, she was most fortunate in having a family that did not abandon her but continued to love and help her when she was most in need. The love that Alice’s children felt toward her has been transmitted to their children. The fact that so many of you have come to his memorial is a testament to the love and respect you have for Alice. I wish to acknowledge a few of the many things you have done for my sister.
For example, you gathered in Los Altos to clean the house, clear the garden and to make repairs, some of which were major. You had a role in convincing Alice to answer the telephone so we could communicate with her. Tom encouraged the family to make regular telephone contact. Do you recall the matrix he prepared asking each of us to call Alice on certain days of the month?As her conservator, Jan has spent many hours dealing with Alice’s financial affairs, writing long detailed accounts to the court describing Alice’s situation, the sum total of which are a valuable history.
Nancy traveled to Los Altos many times over three decades to spend overnights with her mother and to see to her needs. Alice was never interested in seeing doctors, but Nancy convinced her to see a physician in Los Altos and again in Sacramento. This was done through gentle but persistent persuasion.
Nancy and Alice traveled together to Kfeirian Reunions in West Virginia, Las Vegas, and Ohio. They also visited Jan and Jeff in Juneau. In Sacramento, Nancy and Alice had a weekly visit to the Westminster Presbyterian Church for concerts and for lunch afterwards. And they played bridge at the senior center and enjoyed frequent visits to the art museum and parks.
The last three years of Alice’s life in Sacramento were happy ones. Tom and Nancy found the wonderful house on M Street with the large kitchen window that looked out on East Portal Park. Alice delighted in watching the activity on her street and in the park: mothers with strollers, joggers, skaters and bikers, picnickers, old folks and young lovers. She loved her lemon tree and the stoop where she could sun herself.
Thanks to the family visitors to M Street who made it easy for Alice to live happily and to Tom and Nancy for their daily visits. I have thanked Tom a hundred times for all he has done for his mother-in-law. Has any son ever treated a mother better than Tom treated Alice?
Alice’s last words will always be embedded in our memory, coming in response to the caretakers asking if she wanted to bathe: “Yes,” said Alice, “I want to look good because my family is coming.”
The tribute below was delivered by Abe J. Bassett at the Celebration of Life for Alice on Sunday, May 29, 2011 in Sacramento, California.
ALICE TAMAM BASSETT RUTHERDALE
To celebrate the life of Alice Tamam Bassett is why we are here this morning. Alice’s spirit is but a little way above our heads. If you will listen carefully, you can hear her say, “Thank you, My Family, for being here today.”
Her long life was at times exciting, challenging, productive and difficult. She was in turn a dutiful daughter, an excellent student, a dedicated mother and wife, a musician, a cryptologist and a biology teacher. She was our mother, our grandmother, our great-grandmother, our mother-in-law, our sister and our inspiration.
Alice was born Tuesday, October 11, 1921 between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m., at 410 Dickinson Street, Williamson, WV. I was born in the same town, same house, and almost exactly nine years later in 1930. We were both born under the sign of Libra.
My relationship with my sister Alice contributed in important ways to my development. Her lifelong encouragement inspired me to look forward and to work hard. She was my mentor, my pacesetter, and an inspiration.
Alice was one of five older sisters—the fourth of five girls in our family—but perhaps the one whom I thought of as my “big sister,” the sister who instructed and guided me. When I wrote to her in 1987, I said, “you took me under your wings.” One of my earlier memories was when I was about six and Alice 15. Lorraine and I were walking side by side with Alice when we came to a ladder on the sidewalk, forcing us to break ranks and walk on either side of the ladder. To do so was to cause bad luck and in order to break the hex that would befall us for being split apart; both persons must simultaneously say the magic phrase “bread and butter.” But Alice went one step further to say the magic words were “brown bread and butter.”
With respect to good manners, she said I should always speak first to an older person, increasingly difficult to do these days. And she told me to always open a door for a girl or a woman. When I was seven and Alice 16, I thrilled to see her marching in the high school band. Her instrument was the largest in the band---the bass horn. I marveled that she could carry such a heavy load, not knowing the horn was hollow. But it was heavy enough that our mother Rahija built a shoulder pad to make her load less of a burden.
It greatly pleased our father that Alice was an excellent student and a huge help to him by working at Bassett’s Confectionary. When Papa suffered a heart attack in 1938, Alice ran the confectionary for three weeks, opening it up in the morning and closing it at night. She was 16 years old. At 17 years and seven months of age, in May 1939, she graduated from Williamson High School, and Papa rewarded her with a graduation gift of $35. Alice’s first impulse was to buy a lifetime subscription to the Readers Digest, but Papa suggested a better use for the money. The gift was applied to summer term tuition at Concord College in Athens, WV. Alice never again lived at home except for brief vacations from school.
At the end of her freshman year at Concord, she enrolled for summer school at the University of Michigan, returning to Concord in the fall. Amazingly, her music teachers encouraged her to transfer to Marshall College in Huntington, WV, to take advantage of a much stronger music program. Can you imagine a situation where teachers encourage their best student to study at another institution? Alice did transfer and subsequently graduated with a Bachelor’s of Music Education degree, three years out of high school.
Without missing a beat, she began graduate studies that summer at Michigan and then accepted a one-year teaching contract at Cassopolis Michigan High School. She returned to the University of Michigan in June of 1943 and in February 1944 received a Master of Music degree. Amazingly, at age 22 years and four months, she had a Bachelor’s degree, a Master’s degree, and one year of teaching experience.
I would like to place Alice’s education in the context of education for women in the first half of the last century and in the context of her family’s values. When I began my teaching career in 1960, many of my students were the first to go to college. That is even true today and it was especially true in the 1930s.
My father had only three years of schooling and my mother only two years. However, both could read and write Arabic and both taught themselves to read and write in English. My mother Rahija learned English by studying her children’s schoolbooks, and that is the way she learned to play the piano. Among my most prized possessions are their letters and notes written to me. During the depression, unemployment was very high, and income was very low. Educating girls was not a high priority, except in my family.
All six of the Bassett children were either born during or graduated from high school in the depression years. Among them they earned one two-year teaching certificate, four bachelor’s degrees, three master’s degrees and two doctorates. Of the six, five became teachers. Alice, arguably the brightest of the six, is a product of two remarkable parents who esteemed education for their children.
The spring after graduation from Michigan, Alice did two remarkable things. First, she became a substitute biology teacher at Williamson High School, and she joined the Army. In one of the letters she wrote to me while I suffered my Army basic training, she bemoaned that her basic training was exceedingly boring. However she was never again bored as her next army assignment was to the Signal Corps Intelligence unit in Washington, DC. She became a cryptologist; only the brightest of the bright could hope to have such an elevated assignment. She eventually became a Sergeant, but was discharged three weeks after earning her third stripe; however, she was immediately rehired as a civilian to continue her work as a code breaker. Her high civil service rating was well paying.
It was in Washington that she met Jack Rutherdale. They were married February 1946 and by the end of the year were living in California. When I was 16, my parents gave me permission that summer to visit Alice and Jack; I stayed nearly two months, living in San Carlos and El Cerrito in married student’s house for University of California Berkeley students.
Traveling alone at a young age was not unusual in our family. When Alice was barely 14, Papa allowed Alice to travel alone to visit Bassett relatives in Welch, WV, a family of all boys close to the age of my sisters. She wrote to her sister Selma, in October 1935, “she spent the weekend in Welch and had plenty of fun.” Selma was sworn to never reveal the greatest secret of that weekend: “I’ve determined to marry Clement Bassett . . . but he doesn’t know it yet.”
I saw Alice as bold and adventuresome, extremely intelligent, very positive and gracious. I admired my sister for going off to college, going off to war, instructing me in Emily Post dictums, teaching me to play bridge, and for welcoming me into her home on many occasions. She was always glad to see me, and always equipped with kind words of encouragement. I think she liked me.
When I went to college and later after college to the service, we corresponded frequently. She saved many of my letters and me hers. In the past few weeks I have read through those letters.
When I was in the Army she encouraged me to “be the best I could be” which may be where the Army found their slogan. She also taught me her method of memorizing numbers, such as my army serial number. She said, “mine was melodious.” All I had to do was to set it to music, letting the numbers correspond to notes on the treble clef---do re me fa so.
52 235 055 = So, Re, Re, Me, So, X, So, So.
When we discussed our tastes in music and she told me that Beethoven’s late quartets were perhaps the most sublime of all music. That encouraged me to listen carefully to these works and to come to total agreement about their sublimity and her musical judgment.
In 1953, when I was in the Army in Okinawa, and Alice was the mother of three children, we had several exchanges discussing Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead.” I extolled Howard Roark’s individualism, but Alice brought me down to earth making me focus on the superficiality of the main characters in the melodramatic story.
In June and July of 1953, Alice wrote to me eight times, a letter a week. In one letter she said, “Your letter was an excellent justification of your education . . . you made me proud of you....” “In a letter I wrote to her I said, “Your answers to my questions were beautiful, and intelligent…. You did a fabulous analysis.” Alice and I corresponded even when she was at Agnew State Hospital in 1958, telling me that she was progressing well in her treatment. This positive attitude was characteristic of Alice, for she always said, in response to my inquiry about her health, that she was doing just fine.
In Alice’s years following her illness, she was most fortunate in having a family that did not abandon her but continued to love and help her when she was most in need. The love that Alice’s children felt toward her has been transmitted to their children. The fact that so many of you have come to his memorial is a testament to the love and respect you have for Alice. I wish to acknowledge a few of the many things you have done for my sister.
For example, you gathered in Los Altos to clean the house, clear the garden and to make repairs, some of which were major. You had a role in convincing Alice to answer the telephone so we could communicate with her. Tom encouraged the family to make regular telephone contact. Do you recall the matrix he prepared asking each of us to call Alice on certain days of the month?As her conservator, Jan has spent many hours dealing with Alice’s financial affairs, writing long detailed accounts to the court describing Alice’s situation, the sum total of which are a valuable history.
Nancy traveled to Los Altos many times over three decades to spend overnights with her mother and to see to her needs. Alice was never interested in seeing doctors, but Nancy convinced her to see a physician in Los Altos and again in Sacramento. This was done through gentle but persistent persuasion.
Nancy and Alice traveled together to Kfeirian Reunions in West Virginia, Las Vegas, and Ohio. They also visited Jan and Jeff in Juneau. In Sacramento, Nancy and Alice had a weekly visit to the Westminster Presbyterian Church for concerts and for lunch afterwards. And they played bridge at the senior center and enjoyed frequent visits to the art museum and parks.
The last three years of Alice’s life in Sacramento were happy ones. Tom and Nancy found the wonderful house on M Street with the large kitchen window that looked out on East Portal Park. Alice delighted in watching the activity on her street and in the park: mothers with strollers, joggers, skaters and bikers, picnickers, old folks and young lovers. She loved her lemon tree and the stoop where she could sun herself.
Thanks to the family visitors to M Street who made it easy for Alice to live happily and to Tom and Nancy for their daily visits. I have thanked Tom a hundred times for all he has done for his mother-in-law. Has any son ever treated a mother better than Tom treated Alice?
Alice’s last words will always be embedded in our memory, coming in response to the caretakers asking if she wanted to bathe: “Yes,” said Alice, “I want to look good because my family is coming.”