Frances H. Newton

FRANCES LOUISE HURLIN NEWTON 11/6/1913 – 1/11/2015 Fran was born in Wakefield, MA, on November 6th, 1913 and died as she determined she would in her bed at home in Nokomis, FL, on January 11th, 2015, at 101 years old. Her life was a glorious active adventure of being a ballgirl for Big Bill Tilden, being part of the early Cypress Gardens water skiing team, cooking for Newt's two companies of soldiers when the cooks and bakers didn't show, learning to love Kobe beef, raw fish and fish eyes in Japan and abandoning a cook book she was writing in Cambodia because,""…the King's sister had just written a cook book – in French and English,"" being a part of ‘Hands of Hospice, ' in the 80s that paid the salaries and rent when Sarasota County Hospice was just beginning and much, much more. Always on the move, when she moved into her house in Nokomis, FL, in 1975, she declared it was the 39th house she had lived in. Her first move was at 4 from Boston to St. Petersburg, FL, with her mother to live with her grandmother when her father died of Spanish Flu at the end of World War I. She graduated from St. Petersburg High School in 1931 and went on to Florida State College for Women and graduated in 1935 with a degree in Physical Education and a life-long obsession with tennis. In 2001 Florida State College for Women awarded her a member of the EMBLEM WEARERS, a select group of only 41 women who, between 1928 and 1946, played on at least two varsity teams in every semester of their entire four years of college. Her teams were tennis and volley ball. She also won the annual ‘Race to the Fountain' every year she was in college. She was a true scholar of the skills and strategies of tennis. In her youth she was Florida Junior Champion, President and champion of the St Petersburg Tennis Club and a ball girl for Big Bill Tilden. It is fitting that she passed on the day that her favorite, Roger Federer, won his 1,000th match. She began traveling in earnest when she married 2nd Lieutenant Carroll Thompson ‘Newt' Newton of the Corp of Engineers in 1937. They met playing tennis. She so soundly beat him that he never played the game again. Except for the war years, everywhere Newt was posted Fran went. From Fort Peck in the frozen wilds of Montana, to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and on to his other postings. After the war she joined him to Yokohama, Japan, where she volunteered to teach physical education and swimming to Japanese girls at the local YWCA. In 1953 Newt spent a year at University of Minnesota in Minneapolis doing his doctorate work. Fran developed a project of her own and studied Geriatric Recreation, Her grandmother, Hannah, had died at 99 in 1946 and her mother was 68 in '53 and would pass at 85 in 1970. She had spent her childhood and youth being raised by her grandmother and mother, so she knew intimately the needs of the elderly. After Minnesota, Newt and Fran moved to Los Angeles and then on to Phnom Penh, Cambodia where she was a Girl Scout Scoutmaster and explored the cuisine and frequented the Market in Phnom Penh. Food, cooking and writing cook books inspired much of her life. When she finally ‘escaped' from the hospital a week before she died to go home with Hospice care, she announced she was going to have a glass of wine, lobster bisque, red raspberries, crab dip and smoked mullet spread. She once wrote: "" Cookbook writing comes from a virus, 'Liber – arte – coquinaria.' It is catching! It may be inherited. In my case, my Mother (Roxanna Susan Ford) went to Fanny Farmer Cooking School. Her father(Robert Francis Ford),my Grandfather, was the chef at the Parker House in Boston."" The virus and her name came from her Grandfather Ford. When Newt retired from the Army in 1963, they moved to Pittsburgh where she ""…expected,‘the pitts' but found the city and people delightful. Along the way I had done my graduate work in geriatric recreation and a super retirement home, Negley House, needed my help. Had nice arrangement with them that allowed time off to travel with my husband. .. Had been there 3 weeks when we took off for Africa ."" Of course while at Negley House she produced another cookbook, The Negligent Cookbook, from recipes contributed by the patient. Fran often said that no one ever wrote a cookbook from scratch, but rather collected, selected and edited recipes that tasted good and came or were borrowed from family, friends and the accumulated history of cooking everywhere in the world. She tried as many recipes as she could in her lifetime and among those that ‘tickled her tastebuds' were a Cambodian recipe for ‘birds nest soup' and another for rattlesnake, ‘a rattlesnake may be as hard to find as a good birds nest.' Her cooking classes at Historic Spanish Point were equal measures of local history and unusual and delicious food. The crowning glory of her cookbook career was her last project, Cooking Then and Now, the 1994 national Tabasco winner for community cookbooks. Written for Historic Spanish Point, it is available at their gift shop on Route #41 in Osprey or by mail: Gulf Coast Heritage Association, Inc., P.O. Box 846, Osprey, FL 34229 for the cost of $ 13.95, plus $2.50 postage and handling per book. Florida residents add $.98 sales tax for each book. Cooking Then and Now will transport you into the world of the wit, skills and interests of this remarkable woman. Fran leaves behind a nephew, Frederick Jackson, her beloved cat, BC, and friends around the world. She will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery with her husband , Col. Carroll Thompson Newton at a date to be determined. A Memorial Celebration of Fran's live will be scheduled at a future date. Contributions in lieu of flowers can be made in her name either to Tidewell Hospice, 5955 Rand Blvd., Sarasota, FL. 34238 or to Historic Spanish Point, P.O., Box 846, Osprey, FL 34229. Farley Funeral Home in Venice is handling her arrangements. To send condolences please visit www.farleyfuneralhome.com. In her papers Fran left this poem for all her. Tho I have had to leave you, Whom I love, To go along the silent way: Grieve not, nor speak of me With tears: but laugh and talk Of me, as if I were beside you. For who knows but I shall Be, oft times! I'd come, I'd come could I but Find the way. And would not tears and grief Be barriers? So, when you hear A word I used to say. Or, Touch A Thing I loved, let not your Thoughts of me be sad, for I am loving you just as I Always have.