Great-grandmother, peace activist, Mt. San Antonio Gardens resident

Frances Jenney Ross died peacefully in Claremont, on February 1, 2018, at the age of 102. 

She was a 1937 graduate of Ohio’s Oberlin College, and received her master’s degree in social work from Smith College, in Northampton, Massachusetts. Born and raised in Bennington, Vermont, she moved to California in the early 1950s, where she met and married Floyd H. Ross, a noted scholar of comparative religion and philosophy, author of several books (on some of which she assisted) and an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister.

The couple divorced in 1967, at which time she moved back to Bennington, and became active on behalf of the Park-McCullogh House and the Bennington Friends (Quaker) meeting.

She returned to California in 1984 to reside at an assisted living facility, Mt. San Antonio Gardens, in Claremont, where she remained until her death.

She always described herself as a peace activist. She worked for the American Friends Service Committee in Pasadena, and served on the executive committee of the AFSC in New England.

Active also in hospice, she was a creative photographer and a poet. Her self-published book, Some Special Times, was released in 1967.

Her survivors include her son, Bruce Ross of Los Angeles; four grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren; and daughter-in-law Carol Ross of Los Gatos, California.

Gifts in her memory may be made to the Claremont Friends (Quaker) Meeting, at friends.claremont.ca.us, or to the American Friends Service Committee at afsc.org/give.