Louise Riker Edmonds
Louise Riker Edmonds, a Latin teacher at the Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., for 42 years, died on Sept. 27 at the Sunrise at Ivey Ridge assisted living home in Alpharetta, Ga., where she had recently moved. Ms. Edmonds, who was 86, had never fully recovered her strength after a bout of pneumonia almost a year ago.
A longtime resident of Sag Harbor, she began vacationing there with friends and in 1982 purchased a house on Marjorie Lane. Ten years later, she retired from the Masters School and made Sag Harbor her full-time home. She was known as Lou.
Gifted with a green thumb, she planted a beautiful garden in her front yard and tended it lovingly. She would also dive in to help at a community garden.
She was civic-minded and believed in giving. A Christmas gift to friends and family might be a sweater she had knitted or a donation made to the recipient’s favorite charity. For many years, she helped run the food pantry at St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Bridgehampton. She also served as a board member for the John Jermain Memorial Library, and was very active with the Nature Conservancy in East Hampton.
Ms. Edmonds loved traveling and vacationed in such diverse destinations as Germany, Israel, Greece, and Spain.
She was also a voracious and eclectic reader, her daughter Ann L. Edmonds recalled yesterday, and loved sitting at the beach, book in hand, with the sound of the waves in the background. The Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle was always a welcome companion at the beach, as well.
“Lou often remarked that she reached her full height of 5-foot-10 at the age of 12,” her family wrote. “We’ve been in the shadow of those long limbs, and in awe of her towering intellect, lively spirit, and warm heart ever since.”
She was born in Newark on Feb. 21, 1929, to Adrian Riker Jr. and the former Elizabeth Larter, and grew up there. For her high school years she attended the Masters School, like her mother and aunt before her and her three daughters after her. Now coeducational, it was one of the leading preparatory schools for young women through most of the 20th century. Upon graduation, she went on to study literature and Latin at Bryn Mawr College. After receiving her undergraduate degree, she returned to her prep school, eventually teaching Latin to two generations of students.
In 1951, she married Thomas Hartley Edmonds, and the couple raised four children in Ardsley, N.Y. They eventually divorced.
Ms. Edmonds used to tell her children they must live for learning. “ ‘When you stop learning, you are dead,’ ” her daughter remembered her saying. “She was always learning.”
A few years ago, she moved to Rye, N.Y. before moving to Alpharetta.
Besides her daughter, Ann Edmonds, who lives in Rye, she is survived by another daughter, Beeara Edmonds of Corvallis, Ore., and a son, Thomas H. Edmonds Jr., who now live in Roswell, Ga., and by five grandchildren. Her ex-husband, a sister, Elizabeth Riker Young, a daughter, E. Ryan Edmonds, and a granddaughter died before her.
A memorial service will be held on Oct. 29 at noon at Christ’s Church in Rye, with Reverend Tim Lewis of St. Ann’s in Bridgehampton officiating.
As was her wish, donations have been suggested to the Bridgehampton Food Pantry at St. Ann’s Episcopal Church, 2463 Main Street, Bridgehampton 11932, or the Nature Conservancy Center for Conservation, P.O. Box 5125, East Hampton 11937.