Fay Gardner Lawton, poet, teacher, and singer, dies at 96

Fay Gardner Lawton, 96, of Haverford, a poet, singer, and teacher of children with reading disabilities, died Thursday, Dec. 31, of gastric hemorrhage and cardiovascular disease at Bryn Mawr Hospital.

A longtime educator at Greene Street Friends School and the Bryn Mawr College Child Study Institute, Mrs. Lawton published her first book of poetry, Ringing Changes, when she was 74. She sang in choirs for years and directed a singing group until shortly before her death.

Most of all, her children said, Mrs. Lawton was a “hearty soul” who would stop the car while hurrying to catch a train to admire the sunset. She overcame a bout with COVID-19 during the summer.

“It sounds silly, but she was my best friend,” said her daughter Pamela Lawton. “Even as teenagers, she told us that. She treated us as equals. She was gentle and showed us unconditional love. She was witty and playful. We tried to make her mad and couldn’t.”

Born in Buffalo on Dec. 22, 1924, the oldest of four children, Mrs. Lawton grew up in Rhode Island during the Depression. She was part of a musical and artistic family, and graduated from Vassar College after studying German. Her aim, which she did not achieve, was to help with reconstruction in Germany after World War II.

Instead, she moved to New York and became an assistant to New Yorker magazine editor Harold Ross. It was there that she met Dr. M. Powell Lawton, soon to be a world-renowned behavioral psychologist and authority on aging. He, a scientist working on his Ph.D. at Columbia, and she, a writer, were united by their mutual appreciation of the human condition.

They were married in 1949, had three children — Tom, Jenny, and Pamela — and lived together for 52 years until his death in 2001.

Mr. and Mrs. Lawton were progressive, pacifist Quakers who shared a love of music, civil rights, and social justice. They attended peace rallies in the 1960s, and she served as a Democratic committee woman in Montgomery County.

They played “Name That Tune” to classical music on the radio during family car trips. They lived in Royersford and Collegeville before moving to the Quadrangle in Haverford in 2000, and were active at the Radnor Friends Meeting.

Mrs. Lawton earned a master’s degree from Temple University as a reading specialist. As a teacher and private tutor, she became lifelong friends with many of her students. “Her compassionate and nurturing nature, and her flair for the music of language sparked the imaginations of her students, who, labelled as disabled, were helped to thrive,” her family wrote in a tribute.

Mrs. Lawton liked to rollerblade, and did so into her 70s. She survived severe frostbite after a cross-country ski trip when she was in her late 80s. She was an organic gardener, and a member of many writers’ groups and workshops. A soprano, she sang in choirs in Collegeville and directed singers later in Haverford.

“I loved her fine taste in garments, her patient demeanor, and her beautiful true voice,” one of her fellow singers wrote in a tribute.

Mrs. Lawton’s poetry often reflected the ordinary occurrences of life through extraordinary imagery. “She wrote from the heart,” said her daughter Jenny Lawton Grassl. “It was honest, deceptively simple, and readable. She understood the sounds of language. They were connected to her core.”

One of Mrs. Lawton’s poems, published in 1998, was called “Windsong.”

Listen friend/comes the wind/causes corn/to rustle bend/stalks to talk/gives trees wings/makes maples spring/in coffee tins

moves in pines/like music fills/ hearts until/they leap./Hold on earth!/hold on mind!/tighten string/leave earth behind.

In addition to her children, Mrs. Lawton is survived by two grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and other relatives.

A private service is scheduled, and details of a public service at Radnor Friends Meeting are to be announced.

Contributions in her name may be made to the Brooklyn Arts Council, c/o Alzheimer’s Poetry Project, 55 Washington St., Brooklyn, N.Y., 11201-1074.