KEMPNER, Paige Mooney

Paige Kempner died at home in Lexington, Massachusetts, on December 30, 2020, two days shy of her 93 ^rd birthday.  Artist, writer, independent spirit, she relished life as wife, mother, grandmother and friend.  Daughter of Paul and Frances Mooney, she was born in Chicago and moved at an early age with her parents and older sister, Carol to Cincinnati.  She attended Lotspeich School and Hillsdale School in Cincinnati (both now known as The Seven Hills School).  From early childhood, she loved nature, reading, sculpture and painting.  She said that her first friend was a beech tree.

Despite her objection at the time, she was grateful to her high school English teacher who made students memorize large amounts of poetry.  Those poems remained with her for life, and well into her nineties she was fond of reciting "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" in its entirety. She was also a passionate reader throughout her life and was delighted when her husband presented her with a red leather-bound complete edition of Jane Austen's novels for her 50 ^th birthday.

Her interest in sculpture was furthered at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, where she worked with Jose de Creeft, in carving granite.  It was here that she gained a closeness to nature and a transcendent understanding of life and death that gave her an optimistic acceptance of the human condition.

At the suggestion of her English teacher, Paige came East to Radcliffe College, where she studied English literature and art history, graduating in 1950.  She said that she went to college for Books & Boys.  She was successful at both.  She studied Chaucer and made the motto on the brooch of the Prioress in the Canterbury Tales, Amor Vincit Omnia, her guide and had it engraved in her wedding ring.  While in college, she met her future husband, Max Kempner.  They were married in 1952.  After working in Boston at The Institute of Contemporary Art, she and their infant son, Paul, moved to Germany to join her husband in the US Army.

In 1957, the family settled in Englewood, New Jersey, where they had two daughters, Daphne and Emily.  Paige had a sculpture studio, where she worked in stone, clay and metal.  She used discarded organ pipes to make anti-nuclear sculptures that were displayed in New York churches.  She worked as Artist in Residence at Union Theological Seminary. She also served for many years as a Docent at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's medieval outpost, The Cloisters. With her clear and musical soprano voice, she was a stalwart member of the choir of the First Presbyterian Church in Englewood and she remained an enthusiastic singer throughout her life.

Paige valued physical courage and demonstrated this to her family on more than one occasion. On one memorable family trip in the Wind River Range in Wyoming, she was the first to brave a Tyrolean Traverse across a roaring river to lead her family to the other side. Later, at her son's urging, she gamely soared into the air for a round of kite sailing. She was a lifelong ocean swimmer and instilled in each of her children a strong sense of both respect for and love of the sea.

Much to Paige's delight, she and her husband moved to Vermont in 1991.  She had always felt at home in the woods and was now surrounded by her beloved beech trees, birds and wildflowers.  She returned to school at Vermont College of Fine Arts, where she studied writing and earned an MFA degree. She wrote a historical novel about the Cathars in southern France in the 13 ^th Century, entitled Let Stone Declare which she published in 2016 at the age of 88.  It brought together her interests in sculpture, art history, literature and religion.

Paige lived her life with curiosity, a deep love of learning, fierce independence, and unconventional thinking.  She was thrilled by the miracle of bringing three children into the world and watching them become responsible, interesting adults.  She took infinite delight in each of her four grandchildren and her one great grandchild.