Skipworth Ho, 83
Skipworth Duncan Ho died at her house in Wainscott on April 7 at the age of 83. She had been ill for some time, her family said.
Born in Bronxville, N.Y., to Perry Duncan and the former Eleanor Murray on Oct. 11, 1930, she attended the Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Mass., and graduated from Bennington College.
“She was a very beautiful woman,” said her daughter Francesca Weaver. “She was an amazing, colorful, crazy person.”
She married Messmore Kendall soon after college and moved with him to Palm Beach, Fla., where she modeled for photographers. “She lived a jet-set life,” her daughter said. When the couple broke up, Ms. Ho, who was known as Skippy or Skip, moved to Manhattan, where she became a teacher at the Dalton School.
She remarried Robert Weaver and ended up buying a house in Greenwich Village with her new husband, a leading magazine illustrator of the time. They had two daughters and a son, Robert Weaver, who died young. Ms. Weaver lives in Berne, Switzerland; her other daughter, Antonia Pelaez, lives in Sparta, N.J.
The Weavers eventually split up, and Ms. Ho raised her children in Greenwich Village, spending summers in a rented converted barn in Bridgehampton.
She met Bobby Ho in the early 1980s, Ms. Weaver said, and they moved to Taos, N.M., after their marriage. Mr. Ho died about 20 years ago.
After his death, she sold the house in Taos and returned to the East End, renting year-round residences through a friend, Tina Fredericks, a real estate agent, until buying a house in East Hampton, where she spent her final years. She always considered Mr. Ho her true love, Ms. Weaver said. She named her cat for him — Kitty Ho.
She loved all animals, as well as culture, museums, books, cooking and cookbooks, the beach, and the East End light. She was a regular at the Seafood Shop in Wainscott — one of the first customers to run a tab, according to her daughter. Toward the end, the shop would deliver her purchases to her door.
Besides her daughters, Ms. Ho leaves a sister, Ellen Blanchard of Burlington, Vt.
She was cremated, and will be remembered in a private memorial on the beach this summer. Donations in her memory may be made to the Animal Rescue Fund, P.O. Box 901, Wainscott 11975.