Obituary : Christine R. Whiting
On a bright, sunny Vineyard day amidst newly flowering tiger lilies, Christine Rosemary Whiting (known to all as Rosemary) died, on July 13.
She was born November 7, 1919 in Airdrie, Scotland to businessman James R. Menzies-Wilson and writer Jacobine Williamson-Napier, and, even after living in the U.S. for more than 60 years, still had a slight British accent. In 2006, after a long, productive life characterized by strong views, organizational talents, and a sense of civic duty, she retired to Martha's Vineyard, a place she had come to love.
As a young woman, she withdrew early from Cambridge University to help displaced persons in London during the Blitz. She later joined the A.T.S. (Women's Branch of the British Army) and rose from private to lieutenant. During the war she met a persistent U. S. Army Major, Dr. Richard G. Whiting from Medford, who described her in a letter to his mother as "one of the real English beauties, presented at court, etc." After refusing several times, she accepted his proposal of marriage over a trans-Atlantic telephone call with a connection so poor that she wasn't sure he had actually proposed and he wasn't sure she'd accepted. In 1946, when she arrived in "America" as she called it, her life as a G.I. Bride on Beacon Hill was far less exciting than in wartime London.
Coupled with her new husband's all-consuming job as an internist at Massachusetts General Hospital, her initial exposure to the Vineyard was to be farmed out for the summer (while her husband stayed in Boston to work) with her mother-in-law and her husband's sister Carol, listening to endless conversations about "the hurricane of '38."
Back in Boston, she quickly got involved in local political action. When the state and city threatened to turn open area along the Charles River into what eventually became Storrow Drive, Rosemary led a mothers' protest march on the Statehouse, with scores of women pushing baby carriages. This action contributed to preserving the continuous green space of the Esplanade, with the islands, pedestrian bridges, and children's playgrounds still enjoyed today.
Rosemary had a great love and knowledge of flowers. In addition to her own houses, all her children's homes were honored by an annual fall visit to plant bulbs. Her version of Johnny Appleseed was to get on her knees with children, grandchildren, friends, and neighbors to show them how to plant daffodils ("always in a clump and in odd numbers" so they could naturalize), snowdrops, crocuses, and tulips as well - always with a little bone meal. One of her great friends was fellow Boston G.I. Bride Thalassa Cruso, the WGBH-TV gardening expert.
In 1948 she decided that Beacon Hill (and later several Roxbury housing projects) were quite drab, so she organized the first Beacon Hill window box contest, recruiting parks department volunteers to help haul materials at almost no cost and scout groups to get dirt and build the boxes. To this day, Beacon Hill is famous for its beautiful window boxes.
When her sons left home, she returned to school and earned a Master's degree in social work from Boston University. Her unusual career included more than 30 part-time jobs that began in the fall and ended in summer, which allowed her to spend summers on the Vineyard with her family. She enjoyed the challenge of starting new programs, getting them funded, and training a successor, many of who became lifelong friends. She was so good at this that she was readily hired well into her 70s - not at high salaries, but at jobs that involved what she was drawn to - startups, volunteer-run, and grassroots self-help kinds of programs.
In 1968, when Rosemary was teaching an adult education course at Northeastern University, she assigned her students to develop projects that would provide a valuable community service. For one student, Beulah Providence, this assignment was the seed for what is today the Urban Community Homemaking-Home Health Aide and Chore Services program of the Caribbean Foundation of Boston, which hires and trains neighborhood people to care for elderly, disabled, and sick individuals to enable them to remain living in their homes. At the organization's recent 35th anniversary celebration, Beulah wrote, "One professor who had a profound impact on my life was Rosemary Whiting. She believed...that communities could and should design and organize their own neighborhood services." Rosemary turned this philosophy into action many times over.
In 1973-74, she served as the first director, organizer, and volunteer trainer of the first U.S. branch of The Samaritans in Boston, the international suicide prevention service. She started this with Monica Dickens, great-granddaughter of Charles, and Sally Casper, who became not only her successor but also a very special lifelong friend.
Rosemary actively campaigned to legalize living wills and euthanasia, and started the Hospice Program of Watertown, Waltham, and Belmont, one of the first in the U.S. She organized a New England conference featuring Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, which helped popularize the hospice movement. Over 1,500 people attended, including some from Attleboro where subsequently, with the help of her son, a hospice was set up by the VNA.
One of her last part-time jobs was training student interns and volunteers to provide ombudsman and research services for Boston City Councilor David Scondras. The job ended when the councilor lost reelection.
Rosemary is survived by two sons, Dr. Timothy Napier Whiting and his partner Kate Schomp of North Attleboro, and Chapala, Mexico, and Jonathan Merrill Whiting and his wife Susan Thompson of Oak Bluffs, her son Jesse Thompson, his wife Heidi and their children, Liam and Shilah of Jackson Hole, Wyo.; four grandchildren: Amos Whiting and his wife Jordan Dann of Aspen, Colo., Daniel Whiting of Oak Bluffs, and Michael and Sarah Whiting, both of Boston; two former daughters in-law, Laura Artru and her husband Philippe of Vineyard Haven and Jalda Whiting of North Attleboro; a brother, William Napier Menzies-Wilson and his wife Liz of Chiswick and Hereford, England; six nieces, two nephews, and many dear friends.
She was predeceased by her parents; husband, a sister Jacobine, and her sister's husband Lionel Sackville-West, 6th Baron Sackville, of Knole in the County of Kent.
For information on a memorial celebration of Rosemary's life, please email rosemarysfarewell@hotmail.com.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Hospice of Martha's Vineyard, P.O. Box 2549, Oak Bluffs, MA 02557; or to the charity of one's choice.
The family wishes to thank Samantha and Amanda Cron and the staff of Henrietta Brewer House in Vineyard Haven for their excellent care and kindness during Rosemary's last years.
