Condolence From: Claudia Quinn Cashman
Condolence: While culling the herd in boxes and drawers today I came across the letter of condolence Fin sent me upon the death of my father in 1990. I had been a student at Writers and Books in Rochester NY while I was midwifIng his protracted death from dementia. It’s the letter you never part with , the piece of poetic prose that will always make you weep so many kinds of tears. Oh Fin….how I adored you. Eternal blessings to you and George and Fin Jr.❤️ ~Claudia
Tuesday September 28, 2021
Condolence From: Pamela Carlson Little
Condolence: Dear George,
I know this is late, but I just found out your mom had died. I was talking about her this weekend in my training group (24th year on Bowen family systems theory) and the significant impact she had on my life by her caring for me along with you and Finny when I was age 2-5. She brought literature, of course, but also fun (remember "Picking up Paw-Paws" in the parks?) and was reassuringly there in the middle of the night once when I woke to find my parents gone because my mom was delivering Brian. I found her again through a NPR Garrison Keillor reading of a poem dedicated to her that was finished at that apartment where we all lived so long ago. We intermittently corresponded and talked on the phone. I was able to tell her of my dad's death in 2012 before I lost track of her. My mom is gone now, too. She will always be Scheherazade for me, but also one of my other mothers. Thank you for sharing her. My best to you and Kathy, Pammie.
Sunday November 01, 2015
Condolence From: Todd Beers
Condolence: Fin never came out and said it, but she had a warm and cool way of letting me know that she believed in me. I'm certain she blessed many of us in this way. I haven't spoken to her in years, but have thought of her often. Tonight I read of her passing... look at my Tommie Smith picture with fist raised at the 68 Olympics in Mexico City. What does this have to do with Fin Drury? Everything. Thank you Fin. I love you. Above as below.
Friday July 24, 2015
Condolence From: Gail Hosking
Condolence: Finvola was my teacher, my mentor, my friend. She was a woman of letters in the old-fashioned sense and we corresponded for years. She had an enormous influence on my writing, my view of the world, myself. I will forever miss her. I am grateful for her life, for her presence. I'm so glad I visited her once in Maine and saw her writing hut and her beautiful house and garden. That view sustained me when we were so many miles apart. I only wish I had returned.
May her memory be for a blessing.
Sunday February 15, 2015
Condolence From: Laura Hendrie
Condolence: George and Cathy,
My profound condolences. George and Fin took me in and took care of me. I will remember Fin as my real mother. As sorry as I am to have been on the other side of the country when she was dying, I 'm so glad to know she had you. You both were there for her when she needed you. She loved you both so much. She was the best.
Saturday February 14, 2015
Condolence From: Malcolm Katz
Condolence: Dear George,
I am another graduate of the first class of Monteith College. I loved your parents. Your father was my teacher and my friend and your mother was special beyond words. Over the years whenever we saw each other or spoke to each other we laughed and remembered that I taught your father how to drive a car. In 1961 I spent a year studying in Denmark and as a going away present your dad gave me a book with a note in it that he wrote in Danish. I am holding the book as I write this. We last saw your folks in Maine in 2004. I am sending a picture from that visit to the funeral home and I hope they will forward it to you. My sincere condolences to you and your wife. I too wish that your parents memory be for a blessing.
Saturday January 24, 2015
Condolence From: Jim Cohn
Condolence: Fin was my mentor and friend. Her study on East Avenue in Rochester was holy ground. Living in Rochester during the mid-1980s, when the poetry community was on fire, had as much to do with her as it did anybody else. She had that special Midwest bodhisattvaic strength of loving kindness. You could learn a lot about human dignity from Fin. It was central to her speech, her writing, and her being. I don't know if I would have continued to heed my own calling in poetry if I hadn't met her when I did. For the honor of knowing her I am forever grateful.
Thursday January 22, 2015
Condolence From: Andy Kohen
Condolence: Georgie (forgive the informality but I did know you when.......) & Kathy,
I am pretty sure that I shared with your Dad and he with your Mom, my profound gratitude for his guidance and caring, both during my years at Monteith and later when I hit a wall during my graduate education. Indeed, they collaborated on a letter to me to buoy up my spirits and share their own experience with your father's academic bump in the road. But, I don't know that you ever heard it. While your parents' influences on who I became were subtle and probably not visible to most people that know me and knew them, please understand that they were profound indeed. Their legacy at Monteith will never be lost or forgotten because there are so many of us that learned from them. I had the honor of being selected as the outstanding teacher at my institution many years ago and I chose to share with my colleagues and others assembled at the ceremony a part of the address that your father suggested that I use when I had the honor of addressing the first Monteith graduating class in our own commencement exercise in 1963. It is a quotation from Erasmus of Rotterdam which goes as follows: "Let it be your first Care to chuse you a Master who is a Man of Learning; for it cannot be, that one that is unlearned himself can render another learned. As soon as you have gotten such an one, endeavor all you can to engage him to treat you with the Affection of a Father, and yourself to act towards him with the Affection of a Son. And indeed, Reason ought to induce us to consider, that we owe more to those from whom we receive the Way of Living Well, than to those to whom we owe our first Living in the World; and that a mutual Affection is of so great Moment to Learning, that it will be to no Purpose to have a Teacher, if he be not your Friend too."
I will close with the customary Jewish phrasing at times such as these: May her (their) memory be for a blessing.
Wednesday January 21, 2015
Condolence From: Ryan
Condolence: George,
Condolences to you and your family. What a spectacular life! The obituary was certainly worthy of the woman, herself. I am grateful to have been exposed to her work. Through my limited knowledge of Finvola, two things are apparent: She was a great poet, as evident by her work, and a great mother, as evident by her son. May you continue to find strength and peace in her memory.
Best,
Ryan
Tuesday January 20, 2015
