The Unitarian Meeting House in Hartford, CT was packed with family, friends, and neighbors gathered to honor the memory of Florence Rush Nance Woodiel and I was prepared for yet another memorial service this year, but not for the memorial I attended.

Noted violinist Paul Woodiel started off the ceremony talking about his mother and playing W.A. Mozart’s Sonata no 21 in E minor, K. 304 Tempo di Meuetto. It was a piece that the young Mozart composed after the death of his mother. When he completed the movement, the congregation applauded.

He told us that Florence Rush Nance Woodiel was born in China and named after her grandmother, Florence Rush Nance, who had been in China as a missionary around the start of the twentieth century. He noted that Florence Rush Nance had been one of the first women to receive a degree in science from Vanderbilt.

A little research reveals takes us to the Vanderbilt University Quarterly of January, 1904 It reports that Walter Nance was accepted by the Board of Missions of the Methodist Church, South for work in China in July, 1895. On September 27, 1897, he married Florence Rush Keiser. Florence Rush Nance taught mathematics and chemistry in the McTyeire School for Young Ladies.

The Open Library provides information about two books written by Florence Rush Nance, The love story of a maiden of Cathay published in 1911 and Soochow, the Garden City published in 1936.

Earlier this summer, I attended a memorial service for Evelyn Lull who had been a close friend of my family when I was growing up. Evelyn, and Flo both came from liberal traditions growing out of missionary families committed to the arts and fighting for the rights of all people, especially women. Like Flo, Evelyn was also the granddaughter of a strong, science oriented missionary woman. I wonder what sort of stories the grandchildren of the current generation will have to say about their ancestors at the turn of the twenty first century.

Later, Flo’s second cousin, Hodding Carter III spoke more about Flo’s unabashed liberalism and spoke about how we need people with Flo’s spirit now more than ever. For those who do not remember who Hodding Carter III is, back in the 1970s President Carter, who I do not believe is an immediate relative, appointed him Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and State Department spokesman. He was often on the air during the Iranian Hostage Crisis.

In the congregation, Congressman John Larson, State Representative Andrew Fleischmann, and other dignitaries sat with others that had come to remember Flo. The great music continued. There was J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in d minor: Largo, ma non tanto. At the end there were bagpipes.

Hodding Carter III went to Philips Exeter and later to Princeton. Others spoke about fellowships at Harvard, and one person quoted Emerson. This was elite eastern intellectual liberalism at its best.

I come from poorer stock. Generations of New England farmers, and nurses that had been raised as orphans in Canada and come down to New England for better jobs. Yet the underlying ideals of the people that gathered to honor Flo were the same ideals that the nurses and farmers in my family tree held and that we desperately need more of today.

There are some today that sneer at intellectualism, that would trample the arts, and that appear to have little use for the compassion that led ancestors to serve as missionaries over seas, to fight for women’s suffrage, or show concern for the impoverished of today. They are willing to trade everything that has made our country great in defense of selfish tax cuts for the most wealthy amongst us.

As for me, I am glad to stand with Flo, her ancestors, and everyone that gathered to honor so much that she has done. Rest In Peace, Florence Rush Nance Woodiel.