WEST CORNWALL, Conn.—Gretchen (Rath) Doolittle, former longtime faculty member and director of studies at both the Indian Mountain School in Lakeville, and South Kent School in South Kent, died quietly at home on Sunday, Sept. 20, after spending the day surrounded by family and neighbors. She had kidney cancer.
Gretchen Rath, who as a young adult took her mother’s name (Dewitt) as a middle name, was born on October 26, 1933, in Washington, DC, to Gordon Brandon Rath, a veteran of the Great War, and Dewitt (Gertrude) Norris Rath.
As a child, Gretchen was a member of Saint Albans Episcopal Church, parish church of the Washington National Cathedral, where she sang in the Children’s Choir. During World War II, at the age of 11, she was called on to christen a Liberty ship, the SS George W. Norris, named after her late grandfather, who was a long-serving maverick U.S. senator from Nebraska.
She attended Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, DC, and Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt. There she met her husband, Jerome Hill Doolittle, the late novelist whose eclectic career brought him from journalism to diplomacy, speechwriting and teaching, and brought the family from Washington to Morocco and Laos and then to the northwestern corner of Connecticut.
She often told stories about traveling abroad, including a memorable ocean crossing to Morocco through an Atlantic hurricane on the defunct American Presidents Line with four young children, and without her husband who had travelled ahead. After returning to the United States, the family settled in the Northwest Corner where her husband had spent much of his childhood. Because of his work, Jerome divided his time between Connecticut and Washington for several years, and later Cambridge. Gretchen cared for five sons while working full-time and often managing family illness that for many weeks at a time required her to drive 90 minutes to Hartford and back after her own workday—she estimated that she drove more than 100 miles a day.
Gretchen remained a constant presence in the community and was involved in professional and civic organizations here for almost 60 years. For nearly 20 years, she was chairman of the Department of Mathematics and director of studies at the Indian Mountain School, arriving shortly after the retirement of her father-in-law, William Doolittle, headmaster for many years.
After leaving to earn her master’s degree in education at Harvard University in 1991, she joined the faculty at South Kent School, where for 15 years she taught calculus and algebra and also served as director of studies before retiring in 2007. She tutored students before and after retirement, and a number went on not only to pass their classes, but to teach mathematics themselves.
For many years, Gretchen served at various times in every executive position in the Cornwall Civic Club, which provided an affordable beach in Cornwall in the years before that town opened its own public beach. She was likewise a longtime member of the Democratic Town Committee in Sharon, serving in a number of officer positions, and a member of the board of the Cream Hill Lake Association in Cornwall, serving a number of terms as both vice president and president.
She also served on the boards of the Cornwall Public Library and Prime Time House, a mental health charity in Torrington. She donated blood annually to the Red Cross for more than five decades, and was generous with her time and money, making regular small donations to the local food pantry and more than a dozen organizations, mostly in the Northwest Corner.
Although she was a fixture in Cornwall for many years, for decades she also kept up with friends from her childhood and youth, and well into her 80s attended annual destination reunions with the “Midd Mamas,” a group of women friends from her undergraduate days at Middlebury College.
Gretchen was an accomplished cook and hostess, frequently opening her house to friends and family for dinner or other meals, or in the case of some friends of her then-teenage sons, for an entire summer.
Easter celebrations at the Doolittle house became a neighborhood institution for more than 25 years, with egg hunts for children invited from all over town, and sometimes neighboring towns. Some years she made as many as five elaborate Christmas dinners to accommodate the schedules of her sons and their families, and she prepared and transported all the food for the wedding rehearsal dinners of her sons and one of her nieces. She once hosted an entire wedding reception for a young colleague whose parents were not able to travel, and made all the food, complete with a four-tier traditional wedding fruitcake, which required more than 14 pounds of sugar for the icing alone.
Gretchen was happiest when she was with her grandchildren, or talking about them, and in her last months as she began to suffer more from effects of her illness, she marveled over and over again about their accomplishments in school and early careers.
She is survived by her 12 grandchildren Nicholas Hanzalik, Eliza Doolittle, Lauren Hanzalik, Bethany Doolittle, Samuel Doolittle, Tessa Doolittle, Anayis Doolittle, Hannah Doolittle, Georgia Doolittle, Eve Doolittle, Wyatt Doolittle, and Brooks Doolittle.
Also surviving are five sons: Timothy and wife Colleen Doolittle of Oakdale, Minn.; Theodore Doolittle and wife Kathryn Engustian of West Hartford; Jonathan Doolittle and wife Blair McElroy of Greenbrae, Calif.; Michael and wife Amity Doolittle of New Haven and Santa Fe; and Matthew Doolittle of New York and West Cornwall. After nearly 68 years of marriage, her husband died in 2023. Her brother George Norris Rath died in 2015.
Funeral services will be held at the North Cornwall Meeting House (United Church of Christ) on Cogswell Road in West Cornwall on Saturday, Oct. 17 at 1:30 p.m.
A celebration of life for family and friends will also take place in 2027 at a time and place to be determined.
