Book Fund at Packer Collegiate

Today there was a reception to view photography books purchased in Elizabeth's name for the library at Packer.

Books by Lisette Model, for instance.

And Meatyard

Kertesz

Erwin Olaf

And pictures of New York by

Ruth Orkin

And one by Klein of Tribeca, after snow

I felt very elegiac, and overwhelmed by the emotion of returning to the school, the first time since the memorial service over three years ago.  So many of her teachers were there, people who mattered deeply to Elizabeth's education, people who taught her what she should be.  People like Eric Baylin, who read this poem:

Elizabeth's Books

Through her eyes a photograph unfolded
Through her gaze surface grays and blacks began to breathe,
     gave way to stories.
Faces came alive
Through her careful looking.

And so these books - Elizabeth's - are filled with surfaces to be
    plumbed through quiet gazing.
For years beyond our own a string of curious minds will find in these
    new ways of looking, new ways of thinking
And through their eyes and in that trail of small epiphanies, lighted
     moments stretching past our view,

She will be gazing still.

Eric Baylin
April 22, 2010

How she wore clothes

She loved to find things at used clothes stores. There was a place in rural Pennsylvania that had dresses that fit her as if they had been tailored just for her. The owner loved the way she looked so much that she gave her a discount. She looked a little like Lauren Bacall with the tightly fitted dress of pale brown linen.

Easter

Easter.

Once when she was six or seven I asked Elizabeth what her favorite place was in the whole world she replied

Easterland!