Yvonne Yaw

Yvonne Jeannine Yaw, professor of English at Bentley University, mother, sister, and beloved friend, died on January 31, 2012, at age 75. She passed away quietly and peacefully at Mt. Auburn Hospital after a brave fight with pneumonia and heart troubles. Yvonne was born on August 16, 1936, in Columbus Ohio, to Marguerite and James Yaw. She was the eldest of four, including Patti, Steve, and Jessena. When her father passed away and her mother re-married, she gained a stepbrother, Joseph Powell, and a stepsister, June Powelson. As a girl, Yvonne won a scholarship to the Columbus School for Girls, a private college preparatory school. She then attended Wellesley College, where she was a Durant Scholar, and went on to earn a Ph.D. in English from Harvard University | one of the first two women to earn a doctorate in English from Harvard. Yvonne then taught English, drama, and creative writing at Bentley University for over 30 years, where she continuously innovated new courses and was a favorite of many students. Her courses were known for their emphasis on creativity and student participation and she won the Bentley College Innovation in Teaching Award in 1990. She also wrote several novels. Her first book, the fictionalized non-fiction Woman Doctor, co-authored with Dr. Florence Haseltine, was a Literary Guide Alternate Selection, a Doubleday Contempo Book Selection, and was in print for almost 20 years. Her latest fiction, Weave the Thread with Bones, is a feminist historical novel about the Lowell mill "girls" of the mid-19th century, the first movement of women into a paid work force with a collective identity. She received the top award for fiction from the Artists Foundation of Massachusetts in 1987, and the Esteemed Daughter of Mark Twain award by the Mark Twain Journal for her second novel, Sky. Throughout her life, Yvonne dedicated herself to charitable causes and the arts. While at Wellesley she joined the Shakespeare Society, and later served as president of its alumnae association. At Bentley University, she founded the Gender Issues Council, a group committed to fostering awareness of womens issues on the campus and in the business world. Also, she served English At Large (formerly the Eastern Mass Literacy Council), which provides free one-on-one English tutoring in language and literacy skills to the under-served and culturally marginalized people of Eastern Massachusetts, as a tutor and a president. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the early 80s, which inspired her to champion disability issues and to serve as an M.S. peer counselor at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA. Teaching and writing were Yvonnes two loves. As she had desired, she did both with vigor through her 75th birthday and until she passed away. Despite her multiple sclerosis, Dr. Yaw lived a full and energetic life: teaching full time, volunteering, visiting with friends, and attending concerts and plays. Yvonne Yaw is survived by two sisters (Patti Jewett of Cape Coral, FL, who married Bill Jewett, and Jessena Finn of San Francisco, CA); her brother, Stephen Porter Yaw of Wildwood, FL; her daughter, Anneke Tucker of Oakland, CA (who married Andrew Calkins), her grandson, Aidan Tucker-Calkins, her former husband, Ralph Tucker of Emeryville, CA, and by numerous nephews and nieces and cousins. A memorial service with a reception following will be held at First Parish Church at 7 Harrington Road in Lexington, MA, where Yvonne was a congregant, on Saturday, February 11, 2012, at 2pm. Directions: http://fpc.lexington. ma.us/index.php/directions.. On-line condolences may be expressed at: http://yvon neyaw.blogspot.com/. In lieu of flowers, a donation to the Multiple Sclerosis Society is requested in Yvonnes memory; http://.nationalmssociety.org/donate/index.aspx