Cordelia Allegra Ross

Cordelia Allegra Ross, lover of Shakespeare, dedicated teacher, loyal friend, and deeply loved wife and mother, passed away on August 19, surrounded by her family and closest friends. Cordie, as most friends and family called her, lived her life deliberately. She researched every decision, from how to brew a perfect cup of tea to the best way to introduce solid foods to her daughter. And, like any trained researcher, she always cited her sources.

Born on January 17 1985, Cordelia grew up in Las Cruces, NM. One of Cordie's earliest memories was her frustration at not being able to read. Once she started, she never stopped. Her friend Christina recalls that they became fast friends in fourth grade because they both wanted to stay in and read during recess, but were forced outside to get fresh air. Undeterred, they took their books with them. Cordelia went on to pursue reading as a career, earning her undergraduate degree in English from Dartmouth College, her MA in Humanities from the University of Chicago, and finally a PhD in English from the University of California, Davis.

For Cordelia, there was no separation between her interests and her work. One of her passions was caving and cave rescue; she met her future husband Wayne Morris at the annual convention of the National Cave Rescue Commission. Somewhat incredibly, Cordie figured out how to merge a love of caving and medieval literature. Her PhD dissertation, Unearthing England: Conquest and Identity in Underground Narratives, 1150-1250, focused on depictions of caves in medieval texts.

Cordelia taught classes in literature and writing at UC Davis, the University of Alabama, Brazosport College, and most recently at St. Stephen's Episcopal School in Austin, where she also served as a beloved coach of the caving team. As with all of Cordelia's pursuits, she saw her teaching career as an ethical imperative. She believed it was her responsibility to instill her students with critical thinking skills, to teach them how to question the world around them and thoughtfully assess information. She also saw it as her duty to keep literature relevant and interesting for her students. She published a book chapter on her strategies to make Shakespeare accessible to community college students, and was invited to speak to the Alabama Digital Humanities Center about her use of Minecraft to help her students inhabit the world of Beowulf.

Cordelia infused her spaces with beauty. She loved flowers-she worked for a florist in high school, and in the greenhouse at Dartmouth-and every place she lived had to have some kind of garden, including her desk at work. She delighted in the garden she and Wayne built in Llano, filled with bird feeders, flowers, herbs, and a chicken coop. She and Wayne redesigned their home together, and Cordie deliberated over every detail, from the bathroom fixtures to the glass over the entry door. That home was her happiest place, where she and Wayne raised their daughter for the first year of her life, surrounded by books and their cats, William, Oliver, and Polly. Though Wayne briefly put up a futile effort to limit the cats to two, anyone familiar with Cordie's years fostering bottle-fed newborn kittens and participating in catch-and-release spay and neuter efforts would not be surprised to know that cats in need were irresistibly drawn to Cordie and Wayne's house. In addition to their adopted indoor gang, they hosted many outdoor strays; those with names include BB and Gray Guy.

Names were important to Cordelia. Her own was taken from Shakespeare's King Lear. It also happened to be the name coveted by Anne of Green Gables, a beloved book character for redheaded Cordie. Characteristically, Cordelia chose the name for her future daughter decades before her birth: Viola, the transgressive heroine of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and Sylvia, Cordie's independent-minded grandmother. The longed-for Viola Sylvia Morris arrived on June 20, 2024. Cordelia delighted in tracking Viola's milestones, watching her adventures with her daddy in the backyard, introducing her to cherished books, singing to her in French, and spending slow mornings snuggling in bed. Cordelia often described Viola as a "strong little girl," calling to mind one of Cordie's favorite Shakespeare quotes, "though she be but little, she is fierce." Ambitious, intellectual, and profoundly kind, Cordelia lived fiercely, a legacy she leaves for her daughter.

Cordelia will be missed by so many in Llano, Austin, Tuscaloosa, Las Cruces, and beyond. Those who love her include her husband and daughter, Wayne and Viola Morris; her father, Richard Ross; her mother, Erin Ward; her sister and brother-in-law Hilary and David Freeman, and niece and nephew Madeline and George; her sister Evelyn Ross and future brother-in-law Duncan McKellar; her parents-in-law Peggy and Gary Morris; her sister-in-law and brother-in-law Janet and Raymond Coffman and nieces Sarah and Ella; and her close friends Christina Sowards, Anna Marie Drake, and Robin Riehl. She was preceded in death by her beloved grandmother, Sylvia Ross, as well as her precious cats Gummi and Bubie. She would want all her loved ones and especially Viola to remember a favorite line from Le Petit Prince: "On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux" - "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."