Biographical Sketch:
From WHS I went to Bucknell University. Not a good match, saved by junior year in Rome – the first of three “luckiest big decisions” in my life. Italy altered my outlook, interests and values: I came back with tolerance and curiosity that never percolated in my Westfield years. Guess we all grow up at different times….
Boston was home after college. I joined in the usual ‘60s protests, albeit employed as a writer and editor at insurance companies. I went back to school in 1972 – two wonderful years at Harvard and MIT – for a masters in city planning. Jobs followed with the Boston Redevelopment Authority and Mayor Kevin White.
In 1976, the second of those three decisions: marrying Herbert Wolff. We soon each went on our own professionally – video and communications for Herb, public policy for me – and somehow survived the perils of self-employment for the next three decades. My consulting was mostly for HUD studies on housing, economic development and land-use, and as staff to task forces on social policy issues.
With Reagan’s election, my services in Washington were, well…not much in demand. Time for career reinvention! I coauthored with Herb “The Very Best Ice Cream and Where to Find It,” which landed us in features in “People” magazine and assorted food and travel publications; “Good Morning America” and other TV and radio shows; and a contract with Warner Books. We became columnists, spokespersons and consultants for the dairy industry, milking (sorry!) this through the 1980s.
After a decade in our brownstone in Boston’s South End, then a “transitional” neighborhood, we relocated in 1986 to the Berkshires in western Massachusetts – where our weekends on a little pond cottage had gotten longer and longer over the years. We bought a Victorian in Great Barrington, population 8,700; free-lance businesses proved portable, even in pre-Internet days. Herb served as a selectman, and I chaired the town’s zoning board. I got to play Nellie in “South Pacific” and sang summers with Berkshire Choral International.
Back to public policy work in 1994, I was asked to head a USAID project in Ukraine – the third of those lucky life-changing decisions! Typical of well-meaning assistance after the Soviet Union breakup, my charge was to privatize ALL the land and housing, after 70 years of Communism. I accomplished no such thing, of course, but at least made sure the 20 Ukrainians on my staff went on to good jobs. Meanwhile, Herb created videos for USAID initiatives; our Primavera was the first golden retriever in Kyiv. Our flat was two blocks from Maidan Square, heart Orange Revolution. We loved our year and a half there and have continued strong Ukrainian ties. The current (2022) situation is more heartbreaking than I ever could have imagined.
With Herb 15 years my senior, it was easy to drift from overseas residency into retirement – first in the Berkshires, and then in 1999 in the Triangle area of North Carolina. (We kept our cottage in Becket, MA, for summers. Herb served three decades as theater reviewer for the local NPR affiliate, so we ended up as busy there as in NC.) Choral music became my focus after moving south. Along with singing in groups, I founded TriangleSings.org, a regional choral website; and the Youth Pro Musica Fund, aimed at getting kids, namely disadvantaged youth, involved in ensemble singing. I’ve also been active in the JFRC Rome Center I attended, now the largest school for American study abroad.
As we promised ourselves, Herb and I traveled outside the U.S. once a year after our Morocco honeymoon. That tradition was curtailed by Covid, of course, and ended with Herb’s death from cancer and Alzheimer’s in March 2021. (His memoir, “Wait! I’m Not Finished,” is still on Amazon.) I expect to resettle soon at Galloway Ridge, the CCRC on my Fearrington campus, with Flora, our fourth golden. I’ll continue indulging in the passions we shared: opera, classical, show and folk music…political causes…travel…wine…Berkshire summers. While we had no children, I am blessed and very proud to have two grown, long-term “kids” in Europe. One is Lilja Gretarsdottir, an AFS student living with us in Great Barrington, who went on to Harvard and high political office in her native Iceland. The other is Victor Rud, a Ukrainian-born baritone in whose life and international singing career Herb and I have been involved since 1998.
