Rebecca McCarty
April 24, 1953 - November 15, 2020
Dear Friends,
Rebecca McCarty, a beloved member of the Fellowship of Friends, completed her task on Sunday, November 15, at 1:16 am, from a brain aneurism. Rebecca turned sixty-seven on her last birthday in April.
Rebecca joined the School in St. Petersburg, Florida, on January 1, 1977. She later lived in the Miami and Seattle centers before moving to Apollo in 1979.
Rebecca farmed at Apollo for the last several decades. In recent years, she also contributed her significant being to Fellowship outreach efforts on Facebook, adding her practical wisdom in discussions with magnetic centers.
On behalf of all who knew you, we thank thee.
In loving presence,
Elizabeth Blake
For the Elysian Society
Funeral Service Text: 2021-04 Service Rebecca McCarty
Now I see the secret of making the best person.
It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.
Whitman
Rebecca and her family joined the St. Petersburg Center when I was co-director. Her youth, vitality, considerable being in agriculture and animals was a wonderful addition to our mostly urban oriented group. She was always straightforward, direct and told you what was on her mind. She was refreshingly real and always honest. She is greatly missed.
Walking out of the winery after our bottling octave, Rebecca said, “There’s a wine bottle buried in the cement by Don Biagi and Sam Povezano & others with a note that says: “We tried to remember ourselves.”
We are all just walking each other home.
Rebecca was a master gardener and canner and gave gardening lectures 23 years ago on how to prepare for the prediction. She was also a valuable resource to the community with her own dairy, homemade cheeses, butter and strawberry ice cream.We will always remember her sitting at her farmer’s market table with adorable hand painted sign, red barn and apple green house. Once she hosted a working foreign exchange student who played cello at her market. She was always keen for an intelligent conversation or explanation of how something was done or made. We will miss her. With love and gratitude, Marcia
Rebecca and I spent the 80’s and 90’s riding horses all over Apollo and Oregon House. She was a superb horse trainer and often had me ride her stallion, while she rode a mare in heat and gave directions on what to do.
She was kind to animals and sought to understand how they think, from horses to water buffalo to yaks, so as to be a better carer for them.
I am grateful we had all those times together, for she has enriched my life in many ways, not least by relating our lives to the Work.
When I fist joined the school in Seattle in 1979, I soon got to know Rebecca. Rebecca, me and a former student named Hanu from Finland who was an intellectually centred lunar would hang out in the evenings and stay up late talking and sometimes drinking. We would also drive around in this old VW micro bus. I remember one scary evening when Hanu was driving and wasn’t very good with the clutch and we were on one of Seattle’s steeper hillsides in the Queen anne hill area. The light turned green and Hanu tried to start the vehicle moving forward only he couldn’t quite hook it up with the clutch and the vehicle started rolling backwards down the steep hill. He finally hooked it up… it certainly created the third state as Rebecca and I went from laughing to screaming as it happened.At one point I remember trying to jump out! I guess the hill was pretty steep. After we both moved to Apollo we were no longer close but I do remember the time we spent in Seattle fondly and always felt we were still friends even though we didn’t really talk much here at Apollo.
for Rebecca’s remembrance:
Reading the quotation from the Elysian Society, it was like seeing Walt Whitman putting an arm on Rebecca’s shoulder.
Think she was a person he should have loved too.
Dear Rebecca we will never forget the times we met. We will always remember you as a true friend.
Herman and Elisabeth Lubbers
O the blessed eyes, the happy hearts, that see, that know the guiding thread, so fine, along the mighty labyrinth