In Memoriam

Helen Fay Lovett '46 She promoted peace and justice, quietly By Lois Shea '95G

H elen Fay Lovett '46 leaves behind many legacies. Because of her, children, teachers and parents are learning the skills of conflict resolution and mediation. Communities and schools have programs that promote peace, mediation and justice, and the prevention of bullying and conflict. A prison has a library where inmates read, research and learn.

Lovett, a librarian and a Quaker, worked every day to live her beliefs. "She tried to live her life with a great deal of integrity," says her daughter Ann Lovett. "But she didn't announce it, she just tried to be it."

By all accounts, Lovett succeeded. She graduated cum laude from UNH with a degree in sociology, the first in her family to earn a college degree. During college summer breaks, she worked at the Trenton Psychiatric Hospital. She joined a Quaker Young Friends group, where she met her future husband, Robert Lovett IV, who had been raised in a Quaker household.

Robert Lovett built the couple a stone house amidst gardens and orchards in rural Pennsylvania, and there they raised their three children. In the 1960s, Helen started night school at Rutgers, graduating with a master of library service in 1969. "That was quite a strong move for such a quiet and shy person," Ann says.

Lovett worked for the Bucks County Free Library until 1985. According to her daughter Laura Lovett, she wrote the grant that created the Bucks County Prison library. "The main tenet of Quakerism is that there is 'God in every man,' which is an old-fashioned way of saying everybody is of value," says Laura. "Even if you're in prison, you have something to offer."

Lovett was one of the founding members of the Peace Center in Langhorne, Pa., and worked to get its programs integrated into school curriculums. "She was a force to be reckoned with, even though she was quiet," says Barbara Simmons, the center's executive director, who was mentored by Lovett. "She got a lot of respect from the community. I just kept watching her and learning." Simmons says Lovett was "to me, 6 feet tall, but she was a short woman. She was very methodical and organized, and her brain was always thinking three steps ahead. She was a ball of fire in her thinking, but she carried it off like the Queen Mum."

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