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December 06, 2005
Mourners gather in rememberance
On a cold blustery evening, nearly 85 people, many with tissues in hand, gathered to mourn the death and remember the life of their friend and colleague, the late Tania Forte.
Among the attendees were friends of Forte, university faculty and staff, along with a handful of Hamline students. In addition, students, faculty and staff from Macalester College, where Forte taught prior to coming to Hamline, were present.
Throughout the evening, attendees were invited to share their memories of Forte.
“Though we are separated from Tania by death, we can celebrate her life...and share those memories,” university chaplain Theresa Mason said.
Many speakers praised Forte’s intellectual prowess.
“Tania was an intellectual’s intellectual,” said Macalester anthropology professor Arjun Guneratne.
Women’s Studies department chair Kristen Mapel-Bloomberg said called Forte’s “depth of knowledge breathtaking” in an e-mail read aloud at the memorial. Mapel-Bloomberg is in London and thus could not make the ceremony.
Guneratne also read a message from Forte’s family.
“Tania was our sister, daughter, mother,” they said. They praised Forte’s friends who cared for their every need throughout the last 3 weeks of her life. “All of Tania’s friends have become our friends. That was her last gift to us,” they said.
Senior Sarah Ditty, a student of Forte’s, described her joy and frustration of having Forte as a professor.
Forte, Ditty said, would assign incredibly difficult texts to read from, and then left the class to analyze what they had read on their own. Ditty said she would often leave class not knowing what happened in the last hour of her life.
“She never gave us the answers,” Ditty said, a phrase that drew laughs from the audience.
However, one day, it all made sense.
“Tania taught us to think for ourselves, to challenge everything...I knew I would never be the same,” Ditty said.
After the ceremony, Macalester Rabbi Shoshana Dworsky who knew Forte only though her celebration of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur at Macalester said, “I feel like I knew her more” now that everyone has shared their memories.
Posted by msveum at December 6, 2005 11:41 AM
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