1925 ~ 2014 Beverley Fonnesbeck was born to Newton and Elizabeth Adams Birkett in July 1925 in San Francisco, and died Thursday May 15, 2014, in San Luis Obispo of congestive heart failure. She had been a resident of Anchorage, Alaska, since 1964. Beverley attended Stanford University campus school as a kindergartener before moving with her family to Los Angeles in 1931. There graduated from the original Los Angeles High School and Occidental College. After graduation in 1946, she joined a group of college associates and founded a neighborhood newspaper in East Los Angeles, the Angelus Independent. When the newspaper was sold in 1947, its displaced editor was hired to teach seventh grade and second year Latin in Lone Pine, Calif., at the northern edge of the Mojave desert in the shadow of Mt. Whitney. On the first day of school, she met Maxwell Wormuth on the school bus transporting teachers to orientation sessions in neighboring Bishop, Calif. They married in August 1948 at her home church in Los Angeles. In 1951, the couple moved to Marin County in the San Francisco Bay area, with their year-old son Christopher Robin and Max's school age children Audrey and Ronald. In following years, their daughters, Alexandra and Valerie, were born in San Rafael, Calif. Beverley taught sixth grade in San Rafael for the next 13 years, and became deeply involved in teacher training and curriculum development. In 1959, she earned her M.A. degree from San Francisco State University in elementary school administration. Maxwell Wormuth died of emphysema in 1962. The following year, Beverley was invited to teach fourth grade in the summer demonstration school at San Jose State University. For this program, selected teachers worked as classroom instructors for children while university classes observed from the sidelines. After the six-week session, Beverley undertook her first trip to Alaska, having traveled on an ex-World War II transport, the Glacier Queen, out of Vancouver B.C. to Skagway. Returning to California, she applied to school districts in Alaska and planned a year's leave of absence from the Bay Area. In August 1964, she put Christopher, Alexandra, and three-year-old Valerie into their new Ford Galaxy and set out to drive to Anchorage. "I had no idea how much north there was on this continent," was her frequent reminiscence. A good part of the road in Canada was being constructed, with detours through dry creek beds or blasted out of steep mountains above the Skeena River in British Columbia. The Alaska Highway was 1500 miles of gravel, dust and mosquitoes. In the beginning days of school, she met her second husband, Boyd Fonnesbeck, the principal at Chugach Elementary, whom she married in December 1964. In 1966, their son, Leif Eric was born at Providence Hospital. Beverley completed the librarianship program at the University of San Francisco in 1968 and became one of the earliest elementary school librarians in the ASD. In 1980, she was awarded a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from the School of Education at the University of Southern California. After she retired from the Anchorage School District in 1989, Beverley was employed at Metro Music and Books until 2005. From 1994 to 1999, she served as coordinator for the statewide Battle of the Books, sponsored by the Alaska Association of School Librarians, and in subsequent years collaborated with other librarians in publishing two teachers' guides to conducting reading contests. A member of All Saints' Episcopal church for more than 40 years, Beverley sang in the choir and participated actively in events of All Saints' Episcopal Church Women. Many of the well-known embroidered dishtowels sold at their Christmas bazaars were from her needle. As an educator, she was a member of the original Anchorage Writing Project and was active in the yearly publication of ASD's student poetry anthology Pencils Full of Stars. She also judged children's entries in the Daily News writing contests for many years. Beverley was a long-time member and past president of Eta Chapter, Delta Kappa Gamma Society and of the no longer active Anchorage Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa. She also participated in the Central Alaska Retired Teachers Association. Leisure time interests, besides reading, included a study of medieval history, opera and classical music, and she loved big dogs. Challenged by degenerative disk disease in her last years, she was especially grateful for the good offices of family and friends who enabled her to continue her active life. Beverley is survived by her sons Christopher Wormuth of Beijing, China, and California; Leif Eric Fonnesbeck of Arlington, Va.; daughters Alexandra Elizabeth Wormuth of Anchorage; and Valerie Ann Wormuth of Paso Robles; brother and sister-in-law Richard and Gloria Birkett of San Luis Obispo; and grandson John Maxwell Wormuth. Her cremated remains will be scattered off the Central Coast of California at a future date.
Published in San Luis Obispo Tribune on May 22, 2014