Frances "Frankie" Hutner, 95, of Ripton, died April 18 at home after a brief illness. Frankie was born in Middlebury to the late Ellsworth B. and Louise Mix Cornwall. She was the youngest of three children and grew up on a farm on Halladay Road. She attended the one-room schoolhouse on Route 7, Middlebury High School, and Middlebury College where she majored in economics and was Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year. An accomplished tennis player and skier, she was captain of the first Middlebury College Womens Ski Team. She received a scholarship to Columbia University where she earned a PhD in economics and was one of the only women in her program. On graduating from Columbia, Frankie taught economics at Smith College. While teaching at Smith, she met her future husband, Simeon Hutner, on a visit with a friend to an army base in Dover, Delaware, where he was the quartermaster. After their initial blind date and only a few more visits, Sim asked Frankie to marry him. She initially declined, but while driving her back from Dover to Northampton, Massachusetts, he won her over just outside of New Haven, Connecticut, where they were married that afternoon, on November 15, 1943, by a justice of the peace. After the war, both Frankie and Sim taught at Smith and then at Kenyon College in Ohio before settling in Princeton, New Jersey, where they raised five children. In 1961, they bought a home in Ripton, where they spent many summers, weekends, and school vacations. Frankie continued teaching economics at Rider University, Rutgers University, and Stevens Institute of Technology, all in New Jersey. She was one of the founders of the Princeton Research Forum, a community of independent scholars in the Princeton Area. She wrote two books: Equal Pay for Comparable Worth, and Our Vision and Values: Women Shaping the 21st Century. She was also on the board of directors of Central Vermont Public Service and Green Mountain College. In 1990 Frankie and Sim moved to Ripton, where she remained after Sims death in 2003. She was a member of the Unitarian Church, the AAUW, and the Vermont Womens Fund. She continued to play tennis and ski almost until her death. She is survived by four of her five children, Dan, Nat, Louise, and Simeon, and nine grandchildren. She was predeceased by her daughter, Liz, and her grandson, Sam. Burial will be private. The family will have a memorial service, to which all are welcome, in Middlebury on Memorial Day weekend. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Middlebury College and the Vermont Womens Fund. Arrangements are under the direction of the Sanderson-Ducharme Funeral Home. www.sandersonfuneralservice.com