Elane Summers Hellmuth

died on Bainbridge Island on May 18, 2011, of natural causes. In the summer months on Bainbridge Island, from the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s, Elane Summers Hellmuth was ever-present in her pink sundress, leather sandals and floppy straw sun hat. She stood outside the entrance to Town and Country market, greeting her fellow island residents with a smile on her face and a petition in her hands. She canvassed commuters at the ferry terminal, urging them to vote for liberal candidates and pro-environmental ballot propositions. She knew practically everyone who ever wandered into Pegasus Coffee House for a cup of coffee. She knew their politics, their family and the environmental issues affecting their island neighborhood. Elane's phone tree had 20 rings, one for each year she spent alerting islanders to health and environmental issues associated with: local drinking water quality; the harmful effects of a proposed microwave radio tower's emissions; the use of pesticides for roadside spraying; the contamination of Eagle Harbor by the Wyckoff Creosote Plant and subsequent clean-up efforts authorized by the EPA; the dumping of 400,000 gallons of creosote waste at the Vincent Road landfill; the use of pesticides on school grounds; the proposed construction of a second bridge to/from BI; the ill effects of strip mall development; and the preservation of the Bainbridge Island's wildlife habitats and rural character. Elane's rumpled, dog-eared, tea-stained, heavily annotated copy of the Bainbridge Island telephone directory is a symbol of direct democracy, deserving of a place in the Smithsonian along side Woody Guthrie's guitar and Pete Seeger's banjo. In 1978 Elane and her husband Jerry founded the Association of Bainbridge Communities, a network of island neighborhood groups dedicated to identifying and working on environmental concerns. In 2000 she was nominated for and received the Washington Environmental Council's Citizen Environmental Heroes Award. Like our current president, Elane was a community organizer.She was also a wife and mother. Elane and her husband Jerome Hellmuth had four daughters. The youngest, Darien, was born with severe brain damage, a setback that motivated Elane and Jerry to open Bucklin Hill School for the mentally handicapped. In operation from 1969 to 1979, Bucklin Hill was a working farm run by live-in students and staff. A fascinating experiment in special education, lessons included tending to horses, cows, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, and a large vegetable garden. Elane lived at Bucklin Hill until 1993, when it was sold to representatives of Hyla Middle School, thereby preserving the tradition of progressive education that she and Jerry helped create.From 1958 to 1967 Elane and her family resided in Seattle. In the mid-1960s, at age 47, she enrolled in the drama department at the University of Washington where she excelled, appearing in numerous student productions. In addition to raising four daughters, it should be noted that Elane's duties during this period included helping to care for the family wolf, Kunu. The subjects of Jerry's first book, published in 1964 and appropriately titled "A Wolf in the Family," Kunu and the Hellmuths were known throughout Seattle's Madrona neighborhood.Elane spent her late twenties and thirties in NYC living with Jerry in Greenwich Village, on Jane Street and Bank Street. She gave birth to daughters Jana, Thane and Darien at New York Hospital. Their young family summered in Vermont. It was a magical time. Elane's first child, Karen, was born in Chicago in 1941, the year Elane and Jerry were married. Curiously enough, their romance began on paper when Jerry, who lived in Chicago, began writing Elane's roommate at Rockford College in Rockford, Illinois, where Elane studied modern dance. To wit, the young Pole penned a peck of poetic paragraphs and sent them through the post. The roommate, however, was not impressed and instead of answering Jerry's tender missives, she shared them with loveletter-struck Elane. Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Hellmuth would spend the next 49 years together.His death in 1990 was the last of four profoundly felt losses in Elane's life. Her third daughter Thane, a gifted poet and artist, died of leukemia in 1972 at the age of 24. Elane cherished her daughter's art. She displayed Thane's paintings and sculptures throughout her home, sharing them with all who came to visit. In 1936 Elane's older brother Thane Summers left Seattle to join the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain. He was killed a year later fighting against the fascists in that country's civil war. His sacrifice deeply influenced the social and political beliefs Elane held throughout her life. Like her brother, she was a doer, unafraid to stand up for causes she felt were just. Elane's mother Hazel was a musician, singer, pianist and composer who loved her children as much as any mother ever did. Elane was 10 when Hazel died of acute nephritis. From her Elane inherited a lifelong devotion to music, art, poetry, nature, and family. After a brief return to Vermont in the mid-1990s, Elane spent the rest of her life on Bainbridge Island living with her daughter Darien. Elane Summers Hellmuth was born in Seattle on November 16, 1919, the third child of Lane Summers and Hazel Thain. She died on Bainbridge Island on May 18, 2011, of natural causes. She is survived by daughters Karen Hellmuth, Jana Thurner and Darien Hellmuth, nine grandchildren and an increasing number of great-grandchildren. A video featuring images of Elane Summers Hellmuth and her family can be found on Youtube. Please sign the online Guest Book for the family.