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mother ran. In high school she boarded at the Brown School forGirls in Southern California.She was gifted with enormous talent and perfect pitch. Shegraduated from San Jose State Teachers’ College with a doublemajor in music and social studies, intending to become a concertpianist. But although she was accepted into Juilliard, at thelast minute she decided to become a Waldorf teacher instead.She studied Waldorf education at the teachers’ training programat the Rudolf Steiner School in New York. Summers she was acounselor at Camp Glenbrook in New Hampshire, where shecomposed an exquisite operetta with lyrics from Tolkien’s Hobbit,and another about a local New England legend. Her artisticdestiny continued to assert itself. She was able to go to Dornach,Switzerland, for six months to begin her studies in eurythmy.At the urging of the Rudolf Steiner School, she interrupted hertraining to return to New York to take a first grade class.She met Richard Rettig at a young people’s study groupat the home of Siegfried and Ruth Finser in 1956. They weremarried in The Christian Community in June 1957 when shewas 25. Two years later their daughter, Chara, was born. Thefamily moved to Spring Valley, New York, where Danilla quicklybecame involved in building the elementary grades and leadingthe faculty of the Green Meadow School. Five years later, sheand Chara went back to Dornach so that Danilla could completeher eurythmy training. She returned to the Rudolf SteinerSchool in New York, where she was the first eurythmist toteach high-school students not only speech eurythmy, but alsotone eurythmy. In 1970, she arranged another first—she tookher high-school students on a summer trip to Dornach, wherethey performed onstage at the Goetheanum. Thus her teacherscould experience the fruits of their own protégé’s work. She wasthirty-eight years old.Three years later the family moved to Wilton, NH, where thePine Hill Waldorf School was just being established. Danillatook on a class. She also worked with Dr. Karl Ernst Schaefer tocreate the first summer conference for anthroposophical, homeopathicMDs in the US. And she went on to establish WaldorfTeacher’s Training as a master’s degree program at AntiochCollege, Keene, NH. The program, which started with 10-12 students,now enrolls 150. A scholarship fund is being establishedthere in her name.In 1985, in her early fifties, Danilla developed health problems,which prompted the family to return to Southern California.After a couple of jobs, an opportunity opened up for her toteach again at the Steiner School in New York City for two years.She later taught in the Pasadena Waldorf School until 1996,when a stroke forced her to retire at age sixty-four.Her art and her artistic sensibilities were employed for thesake of others through her dedicated love of teaching. She notonly taught eurythmy in the grades and high school, but alsoat the early-childhood level; she was a class teacher in thegrades and a class advisor in high school; and finally, a teacherof teachers at the graduate level. She had an enormous opennessand breadth of interests; this expansiveness was a felicitouscomplement to her strong personality and concentratedpresence, for her strength and brilliance were not always easyfor those around her. She crossed the threshold at home at ageseventy-seven, during the festival season of St. John. She passedpeacefully, with no pain, in the presence of her family.Lyn WillwerthDied August 21, 2009Lyn was raised, as heoften said, in a “chickenhouse”: his grandfather’shouse was a convertedchicken barn. Farm life surroundedhim, so it was fittingthat his first introduction toanthroposophy came by wayof a book about biodynamicsgiven to him by Dr. HenryWilliams of Lancaster, Pennsylvania,when Lyn was an agriculture student at Penn State.Biodynamics remained close to his heart and during his retirementhe took up inspections of BD farms and small industriesfor Demeter. Anne Mendenhall, executive director of Demeter atthe time, recalls that Lyn’s background in food chemistry wasextremely helpful during the inspection process.Several years later, other books followed this introduction toanthroposophy. A trip to the Goetheanum introduced Lyn notonly his future inlaws, the Dr. Ernst Herrmann family, but also tothe first two mystery dramas. This immersion into the word ofpoetry and drama continued in various ways: acting, as Retardus,in Hans Pusch’s mystery drama group in Spring Valley,translating Steiner verses for the translator’s group, performingas “reader” for Magic Garden Puppets and at last as co-translatorwith his wife Kundry in the series of Hand Gesture books byWilma Ellersiek.Lyn participated actively in the anthroposophical studygroup which met regularly in Ithaca. He preferred to work withRudolf Steiner’s basic books, assuring the group that all weneeded was there. He donated copies of these texts to NamgyalMonastery in Ithaca, and the monks had told him “they were theonly English books that made any sense”. Even when undergoingchemotherapy, he made an effort to attend study in Spring2009 because some members had heartfelt questions aboutBuddha and Christ.The third aspect of anthroposophy to which Lyn devotedhimself was Waldorf education. His active teaching years werefew. But he promoted the Waldorf education of his children andKundry’s career as a kindergarten teacher in Ithaca. Called tothe board of the Waldorf School of the Finger Lakes he againunited his two special loves, education and farming, by advisingthe school’s farming committee.During Lyn’s decade of service on the board of the WaldorfSchool of the Finger Lakes, he shepherded the school towarda greater understanding of the social responsibility of agriculturalland ownership. In May 2004, when the school purchased100 acres of rural land in Ithaca, Lyn led the farm committeeto engage in a thoughtful relationship with young biodynamicfarmers. Currently these farmers contribute to a communitysupported agriculture (CSA) collective, which serves over 450families in the Ithaca area.Lyn’s anthroposophical leadership provided a beacon bywhich the school community could navigate. He consistentlynourished those around him, both literally and figuratively.It was not unusual for him to bring some recently harvested,Fall-Winter 200947