ADELINE S. TINNING, ASH
Remembering The Duchess of Holdernesse
by Susan Rice
Addie died on June 23rd, leaving behind an ashen ghost of graciousness to all who knew her. She dressed most frequently in simple tailored suits appropriate to her professional attainments, but I always thought she looked like the good queen in a fairy tale and had no trouble picturing a diadem on her head. She was soft-spoken and serene with a light girlish giggle when she was amused which, of course, was frequently since she was usually in the presence of Herb.
Addie came to the Sherlockian world on the arm of a proud Herb Tinning late in the 1970s. By the time he presented her to us, Addie had lived an active life starting with her birth in 1920 in Newark, New Jersey, then a handsome, bustling port metropolis. She graduated from New York University with an MA and began a career in education which culminated in 1966 when she became a founding professor of the Essex County College, later serving as its dean. The college continues to thrive and has gone from a small beginning to an institution offering seventy majors and 564 courses to students from forty countries. She retired from Essex as dean in 1993. She had also had time to marry and bear four children, all of whom mourn her passing. When she and Herb married, she gathered his two children into her flock and thus has also left behind six grandchildren and one great-grandchild. She died at home in Milburn, New Jersey surrounded by her family.
Addie joined ASH in 1983 as the Duchess of Holderness as (I presume) there was no appropriate Canonical queen. She was very much part of the merriment at many of the January ASH convocations while Herb was at the BSI dinner wishing he were with Addie. In 1995, Evelyn’s records show that she delivered the toast to Queen Victoria, confirming that I am not the only one who saw royalty in her person. She and Herb have been absent from our midst for several years, and we are sad to learn that we will not raise a glass with Addie again.
