Person Page 495

Obituary -- News Journal, Wilmington, Ohio; Wednesday, 22 AUG 2018, page 2 (Newspapers.com):

FRANCES WILKIN

Frances Lavinia Hartman Wilkin passed away peacefully at Hospice of Cincinnati on August 20, 2018 at the age of 96.

She was born in Clinton County in the Mount Pleasant community on February 27, 1922 to Alvin and Gladys (Hunt) Hartman, the youngest in a family of six children. Her father died the same year she was born, so she was raised by her single mother as the adored youngest sibling of George Hartman, Conard Hartman, Alice Hartman Johnson, Jeannette Hartman Adams and Robert Hartman, all of whom predeceased her.

In 1944, after graduating Wilmington High School in the class of 1939, she married Samuel Wilkin of Highland County.

They raised three children on a farm outside Lynchburg. She is survived by all three, Teresa Wilkin of Lacey, Wash.., Marty Wilkin Leigh of Dallas, Texas and Samuel K. Wilkin (Janette) of Lynchburg; as well as six grandchildren, Braden Leigh of Richardson, Texas, Lindsay Leigh of Richardson, Texas,

Chance Wilkin of Bethel, Taylor Wilkin Coombs, (Nelson) of Leesburg, Tyler Wilkin of Bethel, and Kourtney May Wilkin of Lynchburg. Her first great-grandchild, Claire Adlee Coombs, was born in March, 2018, bringing tremendous joy to her final months of life.

While raising three children and working as a farmer’s wife, Frances taught school in the Highland County school district over a span of nearly 30 years during which she continued to work on her college education. She finished her bachelor’s degree at Wilmington College in 1964 and a Master

of Education degree at Miami University in 1977.

In 1979 she took a position in the federally funded education program at the Lebanon Correctional Institution, helping inmates learn to read in that minimum security prison. Even after retirement in 1991, she tutored adults who wished to improve their reading skills.

As a member of the Quaker faith, Frances maintained an interest in peace studies throughout her life, traveling to Japan with her sister Jeannette in 1974 to visit their first cousin Doris Hartman, who taught in Hiroshima as a missionary for many years. She later traveled to England, Kenya, Costa Rica, Israel and the West Bank to study he history and work of Quakers,

In 1990, she realized a ifelong dream by traveling to Oberammagau in Germany to see the Passion Play there with her sister Jeannette and daughter Teresa. She also made trips to China in 1997 and to Namibia in 2001 to visit Teresa when she was stationed in those countries.

For many years, Frances wrote about her yearning and commitment to the establishment of world peace, publishing many letters to the editor in the Wilmington News Journal. She also volunteered her time and efforts to achieving peace within US. society by conducting workshops in men’s prisons around Ohio for the Alternatives to Violence Program developed by the Quakers.

Her voice was silenced in 2012 when she suffered a stroke and was no longer able to write or volunteer. She lived in retirement at Friendly Center, in Wilmington, until 2014, then returned to the family farm in Lynchburg, where she lived in the care of her son, Samuel, and daughtér-in-law, Janette, until the end of her life.

Her remains will be cremated followed by interment at Sugar Grove Cemetery in Wilmington. A service for local family and friends will be held Friday, August 24 at Ada Chapel in Wilmington,

beginning at 11 a.m. A memorial service for distant relatives is to be arranged at a later date.

As an expression of sympathy, donations in Frances’s memory may be mailed to the Peace Resource Center of Wilmington College, Pyle Center, Box 1307, 1870 Quaker Way, Wilmington, OH 45177.