EDITH WOODRUFF
1887 - 1950
The sudden death of Miss Edith Woodruff on Saturday,
March 25, 1950 ended the career of one who had spent
more than thirty years of her life in the service of
Vassar College.
Miss Woodruff was born in Andover, Massachusetts on
April l4, 1887. She received her early education at
Brunswick, Maine where her father was Professor of
Greek at Bowdoin College, and at Wheaten Seminary
where she completed her preparation for college. She
graduated from Vassar in 1909. Thenceforward, with
the exception of two years which were spent in social
work, the study and teaching of music were her chief
concern. She received her A.M. at Vassar College in
1918 and the degree of Bachelor of Music at North-
western University in l924.
Her interest in music and in methods of teaching music
led to frequent periods of study in this country and
abroad. She studied piano, harpsichord, theory, com-
position and musicology in New York, London, Paris,
Salzburg, at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleu
and at the Harvard Summer School.
Of late years composing had come to be Miss Woodruff's
greatest delight, and in the summer of l948 she attended
the Composer's Conference at Middlebury College, where
some of her compositions were performed. A choral work,
a setting of Sara Teasdale's Zierrot, has been sung
several times and has been recorded by the Vassar Glee
Club. Characteristically, she spent her last morning
composing and playing the harpsichord.
While she was intensely interested in the life of the
college in all its aspects, the affairs of the Music
Department were a matter of deep and lasting concern
to her. She had done more than anyone else to give
continuity to the teaching of music theory at Vassar
College. She made a constant study of her own teaching
methods and earnestly endeavored to improve them; and
she was always searching for ways in which the depart-
ment might serve the students more effectively. Many
of her ideas which had crystallized over the years took
permanent shape in the volume, Harmonic Writing, pub-
lished in 1948. While the book was designed primarily
EDITH WOODRUFF (Continued)
for the use of Vassar College students, it has
attracted favorable attention elsewhere, and has
already been adopted by one or two other
institutions.
Edith Woodruff will be remembered for her spon-
taneous and genuine friendliness, her warm heart,
her freshness of outlook and her sense of fun.
Students and faculty members who knew her will
recall affectionately her eager interest in people,
her loyalty to her friends, her concern for the
welfare of her students, and the spirit and the
corage which she showed when expressing or defending
her views.
The faculty of Vassar College has lost a loyal and
devoted colleague.
Jane T . Swenarton
Maud W. Makemson
E. Harold Geer
XIII — 97