Rae Ward Stoll
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Rae Ward Harris was born in 1934 to George Thomas Harris and Lola Simpson Harris. She grew up in Decatur, Georgia, and later attended the University of Kentucky, where she met her husband, Gene Frederick Stoll. Rae and Gene were married in 1956. After graduating from UK, they moved to Dallas, Texas, so that Rae could attend graduate school in English at Southern Methodist University. Rae and Gene's children?Mary, Bruce, Todd, and Blake?were born in Dallas. The family later moved to Bloomington, Indiana, where Rae pursued her Ph.D. in English at Indiana University while she and Gene raised their four children. After receiving her doctorate, Rae taught as a tenured professor at California Polytechnic State University and lived in Pomona, California.
Rae was named after her grandmother, Rachel Ward Harris. "Rachel" in Hebrew means "gentle lamb." "Ward," an Irish name, means "son of the poet," or "bard." The gentle poet was a central part of Rae's personality. Throughout her life, she loved language, and she understood the power of literature to teach love, compassion, and depth of feeling. She also had a toughness that was not immediately apparent in her name?the spark of an activist, a steely willpower that she used to fight for what she cared about.
In her teaching, Rae used literature to help her students imagine the experience of others, look unflinchingly at injustice, and consider their own responsibility to address suffering in the lives of others. Inside and outside of the classroom, Rae advocated for peace and equality over the course of her life. She participated in anti-war protests spanning from the Vietnam era to the Iraq war. She attended Women's Marches in Washington, D.C. and taught her daughter and granddaughters to be courageous, rigorous thinkers.
Rae was not just a formidable academic and activist; she was also a wonderfully warm and loving wife, mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, and great-grandmother. She was skilled at creating a home that was beautiful yet always comfortable. Her house, ever full of books and stacks of publications (The Nation, The New Yorker, and London Review of Books), smelled of tea and of her cooking. She loved to try new recipes and follow them loosely, always creating something warm and full of flavor from the herbs she grew in pots on her porch and protected from rabbits. She understood the power of ceremony and of shared family traditions. Each Christmas Eve, she would set a table with china and crystal and place a perfectly wrapped gift?always a book?under each family member's plate.
Rae adored her husband, Gene, to whom she was married for 64 years. She playfully called him "Jen," and he called her "Raymond." The dedication page of her doctoral dissertation, on "The Ethics of Salvation" in E.M. Forster's English Novels, reads simply, "For Gene."
Rae was beloved by her children, her son and daughters in law (Andy, Sandra, and Frances), her seven grandchildren (Rachel, Michael, Anna, Caroline, Benjamin, William, and Samuel), and her two great-grandchildren (Stephen and Leah).
The Funeral Liturgy will be celebrated at ten o'clock Thursday morning, July 8, 2021, at St. Mary Catholic Church, 613 Cherry Street, Evansville. Reverend Stephen P. Lintzenich and Reverend William A. Traylor will preside. Friends may visit with the family from 9:00 a.m. to service time at the church. Fr. Lintzenich will begin with prayer and facilitate the sharing of memories about Rae at 9:30 a.m. Those present are encouraged to share their stories about Rae, if they wish.
Burial will take place at the Harris Family Section of Ferncliff Cemetery, Springfield, Ohio.
Condolences may be offered at www.AlexanderEastChapel.com.