Ida Harrison Washington of Weybridge, wife, mother, and life-long educator, scholar, and author, passed away peacefully in her home on May 30, 2018. Ida Harrison Washington was born in Port Washington, New York, on November 19, 1924. Her father, Henry C. Harrison, was a leading inventor for Bell Labs and her mother, Ida J. Harrison, had a passion for languages and literature. She attended Wellesley College, starting as a physics major, then music, and graduated in 1946 with a degree in mathematics. She attended graduate school at Radcliffe College in mathematics. While there, she took a course in German for reading knowledge where the professor used German literature as material for the course. She realized that this was her true calling and left Radcliffe in 1948 to attend Middlebury Colleges summer German language program. While there, she met her husband, Lawrence, a WWII combat veteran studying on the GI bill, and they were married on December 26, 1948. They both received their Masters degrees from Middlebury in 1950. After bearing four children, she returned to graduate school, earning her Ph.D. in German literature from Columbia University in 1962 and defending her thesis while seven months pregnant with her fifth child. She was an inspiring teacher and had a distinguished academic career, teaching at the Emma Willard School, Bristol High School, University of Minnesota, Drew University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Seton Hall University, and New York University, before spending 20 years at what is now the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. After retiring as professor emerita in 1986, she and Larry moved full time to Weybridge, Vermont. Always energetic, Ida did not stop work with retirement. She served on the board of directors of the Vermont Council on Humanities; secretary, vice president, president, and on the board of directors of the Northeast Modern Language Association; and President of the Vermont UCC Womens Fellowship. She headed the Vermont Womens Fellowship literacy program, Adventures in Reading, for many years. She also taught a literature course at the Community College of Vermont. For several years, she volunteered at Middleburys Sheldon Museum. She had a love of music and played violin and flute in the AMO Community Orchestra and the Vergennes City Band, and regularly participated in a string quartet. She passed along this love of music to all 6 children. Ever since arriving in Vermont as a graduate student, Ida had a love for Vermont, its people, its culture, and its history. In 1952, she and Larry built the beginnings of a house in Weybridge, using boards salvaged from an old horse barn. Several additions and modifications brought the house to its present structure, where the family spent every summer and also many weekends during the winter, and where Ida and Larry resided for the last 30 years. Ida was a prolific author. She wrote Dorothy Canfield Fisher: A Biography about one of her favorite writers, a Vermont-based author who was very popular in the first half of the twentieth century, and edited Early Stories of Dorothy Canfield. She wrote two books, Carletons Raid (with her son Paul Washington) and Brave Enough, about a British raid in Vermont in 1778. Her books History of Weybridge, Vermont and Vermont Vignettes in Word and Line (with Germaine LeClair and Shelia Mitchinson), along with a history of the Weybridge Church, and her English translation (with her daughter Carol Washington) of Alice Herdan-Zuckmayers The Farm in the Green Mountains, continued her writings on Vermont history and culture. She wrote a biography of her 100-year old Aunt Grace, entitled Amazing Grace. She also authored a short novel, Squirrels in the Attic, and the scholarly treatises Echoes of Lucian in Goethes Faust and Otto Ludwigs komische Oper "Die Koehlerin." She published her translation of the operetta Die Koehlerin as Barbi, or The Charcoal Burners Daughter. For several years, she ran a small, independent publishing company, Cherry Tree Books. At the time of her death, she was working on a book about the secret Beecher mission to Europe during the Civil War. Ida felt a deep connection with the Weybridge Congregational Church, and she was always grateful for how the community cared for her and Larry in their early years as struggling graduate students. During most of her life, she was active in church activities, including serving as deacon. Several times, she organized Vacation Summer Bible School at the church and often wrote the play and poem for the Christmas Eve service. After retiring to Vermont, she started the Weybridge Handbell Choir, which is still active 30 years later and performs at church services and several other venues. Ida is survived by Lawrence, her husband of 69 years; six children: Carol (Weybridge, VT), Lawrence (Rockville, MD), Paul (Mill Hall, PA), Ida (Morgantown, WV), Ruth (Tuscaloosa, AL), and Richard (Saint Nom la Breteche, France); 16 grandchildren; and 8 great grandchildren. Interment will be at the Weybridge Cemetery on Saturday June 16, 2018 at 12:30 pm, followed by a ceremony to celebrate Idas life at the Weybridge Congregational Church at 2:00 pm and a reception in the church hall. Arrangements under the direction of Sanderson-Ducharme Funeral Home. Online condolences at www.sandersonfuneralservice.com SERVICES Graveside Service Saturday, June 16, 2018 12:30 PM Weybridge Cemetery Weybridge, VT 05734 Memorial Service Saturday, June 16, 2018 2:00 PM Weybridge Congregational Church 2790 Weybridge Rd Weybridge, VT 05753