In Memoriam

Allie Funnell

Faculty daughter, faculty wife, faculty parent, alumni sister (John ‘53), sister-in-law (Tony ‘51), spouse (Rusty ‘52) and mother (Jamie ‘79 and Annie ‘81) Alice Woodward Funnell died on January 1, 2022. Allie’s connections to South Kent spanned her whole life. The daughter of Sam and Betty Woodward (who joined the South Kent faculty in 1928), Allie was born on August 17th, 1936 and grew up on campus, forging lifelong friendships with fellow faculty brats (Bartletts, Cuylers and Dingmans, particularly) and SKS students (especially her brother John’s friends).  She graduated from St. Margaret’s School in 1954 and Smith College in 1958, and worked at the newly opened Guggenheim Museum in New York before marrying Rusty in St. Michael’s Chapel on October 1st 1960 (a wedding attended by the whole SKS community, including Lawrence Smith, at age 5 or 6, see photo). 

Though Rusty worked in Cleveland, then Detroit, then New York City during the first years of their marriage, he left business to join the Darrow School faculty in 1963, before joining the South Kent faculty as an English teacher in the fall of 1969. Allie often joked that Rusty had promised to “take her away from all of that” when he married her, yet, there she was—not just back at South Kent—but actually back in the (not so) Straight House, with its creaking floors, rodent infestations and the ship’s galley-sized kitchen of her childhood. Nonetheless, Allie loved being back at South Kent, where her parents were right across the road, where she teamed up with Joe Brown to cultivate his prolific vegetable garden while he turned his attention to tending bees, where she used her artistic talents to create beautiful floral arrangements for the chapel and charming Christmas ornaments for the St. Andrew’s bazaar, where she undoubtedly set the record for eating the most dining hall meals of anyone in the history of the school, where her warmth and laughter comforted many homesick boys, and where she attended every SKS sporting event she could. 

    While Rusty both bemoaned and took pride in his inability to “speak the language of sports,” Allie was a devoted and knowledgeable fan. Like Doris Kearns Goodwin, she was devastated by her beloved Brooklyn Dodgers departure, but became a committed Red Sox supporter and sufferer. Though baseball was her first love, she adored hockey, eagerly anticipated each Olympic year, and even a beautiful beach day could not drag her away from Breakfast at Wimbledon or coverage of the Tour de France. Yet, she would always opt for standing on the sidelines and cheering on South Kent (whether in sub zero temperatures at the old Cuyler Rink or on the shores of Lake Quinsigamond) over watching sports on TV, and she dearly missed that cheering role when she and Rusty left SKS to retire on Cape Cod (South Kent’s East Campus) in 1992. 

Still, Allie and Rusty had a wonderful time over the next 25 years, taking delight in walking the winter beach, watching their four grandsons grow (attending so many grandparents’ days, so many games, so many graduations), spending time with old South Kent friends and traveling around the globe with their best buddies Kathy and Nat Goddard ‘53. Just two months after Rusty’s death from cancer in September 2017, Allie suffered a stroke which, in combination with the progression of Alzheimer's, left her needing full time care. Having lost her special spark years ago, her passing on this New Year’s Day was a blessing as well as fitting. Rusty and Allie’s New Year’s Day parties (beginning in the Straight House and continuing on the Cape - where occasionally Pooch Bartlett Howes could be found shucking oysters in the kitchen) were joyful celebrations of the friendships that sustained them and their love for each other, all born of their first meeting on the Hillside. Allie leaves behind her children, their patient and beleaguered spouses and those four promising grandsons, beneficiaries of her kitchen wizardry with leftovers, her idiosyncratic and idiomatic lingo (waste not, want not, glory be to Dennis, how now brown cow?), her artist’s eye for beauty, her wisdom on subjects from songbirds to quarterback sneaks, her pro tips regarding clamming techniques and taking on a curveball, her quick and sometimes wicked wit, her jolly laughter and her great big heart. 

Donations in her memory should (naturally) be made to the South Kent Annual Fund, though she would certainly have poopooed the idea that anyone would ever want to honor her.