Becky

REBECCA ELDER ~ Assume Duty, Embrace Reverence

Many of her friends and acquaintances expressed heartfelt feelings about Becky Elder in the wake of her sudden and serious loss of health in March 2025. They knew her as a constant source of energy and encouragement. With her death in December 2025, some have expressed their wish to follow her lifelong lead and pay it forward for others in her memory.

In response, her family is establishing a fund in her honor which will be maintained and put to work by Sunnydale Community Library c/o Northfield School of the Liberal Arts, the twin labors of love she carried on in her later years, to promote her passion:

READING for EDUCATION

RE ~ ER

REadER begins and ends with Becky’s initials RE in the form of a palindrome. This literary device has been used by psalmists and poets through the ages to surround the reader with the subject in question while both coming and going. Becky was always first to arrive and last to leave. You always felt [and some still feel] surrounded by her presence.

RE also stands for Religious Education which Becky engaged fervently and provided generously for others — especially for “the least of  these”.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” Matthew 11

“We can be content with no less than the old summary of educational ideal which has been current at any time from the dawn of our civilisation. The essence of education is that it be religious.

“Pray, what is religious education?

“A religious education is an education which inculcates duty and reverence. Duty arises from our potential control over the course of events. Where attainable knowledge could have changed the issue, ignorance has the guilt of vice. And the foundation of reverence is this perception, that the present holds within itself the complete sum of existence, backwards and forwards, that whole amplitude of time, which is eternity.” — The Aims of Education, AN Whitehead, 1916

For Becky, neither Religion nor Education can be understood in isolation: they depend on one another for meaning. This relationship is both ancient and modern: uniting and preserving these two great themes in the great and sacred conversation she loves to engage.

Assume Duty, Embrace Reverence ~ ADER

What comes after RE ... after Religious Education? Assuming Duty and Embracing Reverence. Duty and Reverence are merely names for the two forces that one cannot help but sense in Becky’s presence. They are beautifully defined by AN Whitehead [above] as the aims and essence of Religious Education in precisely the way they are permanently joined and sustained in Becky’s life … the ONE and the MANY … the MOMENT and ETERNITY.  For Becky,

Duty is personal and timely … the one in the moment.

Reverence is organic and eternal … the many in eternity.

Becky never saw herself as anything except a punctuation point in the dialogue of God’s creation. She never shrank from her syntactical role at any point in time — no matter the size or duration, be it jot or tittle — yet she always deferred to the greater meaning carried continuously in the cloud of witnesses [including all life forms] in which she is only one passing communicant among many across space and time. For those who feel compelled to choose between methodological individualism and methodological communitarianism, Becky shows a better way — a reconciliation of the two.

For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.

[An excerpt from a card to Becky after her hospitalization in March 2025]

“Dear Mrs. Elder,

Just wanted to send my love and prayers … I would be nowhere near where I am today without your fiery passion and obedience to the Lord. Your life reflects what it means to live fully alive and I have learned so much from you … I want to see people set free through education … I want to teach people to love learning and love people. Someday, I will start a school community of my own that is unlike any other … Your faithfulness and passion are spreading like wildfire.”

Each one of us can choose to participate in Becky’s life and work by paying it forward as she did so that others can live, learn and teach.  As you know, she valued and welcomed each act of her co-laborers — great or small — equally, because they incrementally advanced common goals. For those who wish to continue with or newly join her in that on-going process, send your note or tax deductible contribution to:

READER Fund of Sunnydale Community Library

℅ Northfield School

1813 W University St

Wichita, KS 67213

nascantur in admiratione,

Bob Love,  Trustee, Northfield School

Make checks payable to Northfield School of the Liberal Arts.

All proceeds will go to the work at Sunnydale Community Library.

April 2025

My name is David Trombold. I am pleased to be part of this ongoing collaboration on Becky's behalf during her current health sojourn. My part will be in the field of agriculture. After all, she catalyzed my interest in regenerative agriculture as a superior alternative to conventional agriculture at any scale. Even before my epiphany of the connection between environmental issues and the practical answers found in natural farming as I taught highschool Environmental Science, Becky and Philip encouraged Louise and me in natural farming with a truck load of manure as a wedding gift for our first garden over 40 years ago. I had the academic foundation from agricultural graduate school. Their wedding gift kept me personally connected to apply what I knew to the land. 

Becky, through the years, has been adept at integrating academics and applied, natural agriculture. This alternative to conventional agriculture applies as much to a small vegetable garden with a few chickens as it does to a large farm or ranch. Once I realized the spiritual, environmental, nutritional, and financial implications of tapping into an intricately designed creation, I could/can not get enough to satisfy my growing appreciation of it and its implications for a better world and more responsible stewardship of the gift of life that we have been given. This is especially true as it points to this wonderful God who made it all possible. The simple genius of how well this ecological system works complements its marvelous complexity. However, it must be managed in a way that allows creation to function in the way it was designed to thrive. 

Becky shared her vision of this crest of the wave that has been coming in agriculture. She has invited many to join her. Let's not miss the opportunity that is here. If I can be a resource or encouragement to you being on that wave, let's catch and press into that wave together.

David Trombold   DTrombold@gmail.com
Agriculture & Nutrition Initiatives

April 2025

My name is Marlin Davis and I have known Becky since we were in high school together at Wichita Collegiate School.  Her father, Robert D. Love, founded the school and I was one of the lucky ones who was able to learn in that incredibly rich and innovative educational environment.

After having a career working in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles, I was able to retire and come back to Wichita.  I was fortunate enough to reconnect with Becky at a high school class reunion.  I was immediately struck by Becky’s belief that she could change the world.  I must admit that life’s travels had dimmed my belief that I could really make much of a difference.  But Becky’s drive and enthusiasm soon captivated me and I started helping her wherever I could.  The Sunnydale Community Library is where I found my place.

The opportunity to work with Becky on the library has renewed something in me that had grown dormant.  From an early age reading had been my “special place”.  It was my portal to new worlds of adventure and exploration.  But it has also been my portal to understanding the world in which I live.  So it would be fair to say that I have always had a heart for books.  While I certainly am comfortable with reading on my smartphone, tablet and computer, the experience of reading and exploring an actual book is still so special and familiar.  My reading of books has been a bridge to conversation, relationships and eventually life long friendships.  It is my hope that the Sunnydale Community Library can help empower the next generation with ideas, dreams and conversations.

But the library is not just a home for books, it is also a gathering place for people to share and learn from each other. To participate in the “Great Conversation” as Becky is fond of saying.  The library is a resource for living.  A place to connect with the real world and disconnect from the chaos and noise that is all around us.  It is a place where I hope that future generations can remember the past and prepare for the future.  

Thank you Becky for daring to believe that you can change the world… you have changed mine.

Marlin Davis   MDavis@SunnydaleLibrary.org
Chairman of the Board
Sunnydale Community Library Association

April 2025

My name is Bob Love and I am one of Becky's elder brothers. Although I am retired, my involvement with her at Northfield School continues to be active and spans the entire 30+ years since Northfield was "found" [in an industrial warehouse] as a place where teachers and students could gather to carry on the great conversation which we call education.

Becky has spent a lifetime learning [as student, parent, teacher then provider] about WHAT education is, WHY it is valuable, WHO plays the various roles, WHEN and WHERE it is conducted and HOW it can be enabled for all in given cultural settings — especially for poor families who,  as Edmund Burke noted, usually deserve and always need it most:

"Before we finish our examination of artificial society, I shall lead your lordship into a closer consideration of the relations to which it gives birth. The most obvious is the division of society into rich and poor; and it is no less obvious, that the number of the former bear a great disproportion to those of the latter. The whole business of the poor is to administer to the idleness, folly, and luxury of the rich; and that of the rich, in return, is to find the best methods of confirming the slavery and increasing the burdens of the poor. In a state of nature, it is an invariable law, that a man's acquisitions are in proportion to his labors. In a state of artificial society, it is a law as constant and as invariable, that those who labor most enjoy the fewest things; and that those who labor not at all have the greatest number of enjoyments. A constitution of things this, strange and ridiculous beyond expression! ... Indeed the blindness of one part of mankind co-operating with the frenzy and villany of the other, has been the real builder of this respectable fabric of political society: and as the blindness of mankind has caused their slavery, in return their state of slavery is made a pretence for continuing them in a state of blindness; for the politician will tell you gravely, that their life of servitude disqualifies the greater part of the race of man from the search for truth, and supplies them with no other than mean and insufficient ideas. This is but too true; and this is one of the reasons for which I blame such institutions."

Her thoughts of liberation at Northfield School continue to coalesce around

• the liberal arts trivium [which means reading and dialogue] as the way we are designed to teach and learn [ie. pedagogy],

• interdependent cohorts of teachers, parents and students as the units which determine and advance curriculum [with community gardens available to study agriculture and nutrition] and

• the inculcation of duty and reverence as the twofold aim of our efforts.

In this regard, Northfield has hosted Studium School as a cohort for several years. We are looking for more cohorts to join us. So if you are an enterprising teacher or a person who wants to "pay forward" the debt you owe to others for your own education, contact us and join in the work of the Northfield community. This excerpt from a card sent to Becky after she entered the hospital says it all:

“Dear Mrs. Elder, Just wanted to send my love and prayers … I would be nowhere near where I am today without your fiery passion and obedience to the Lord. Your life reflects what it means to live fully alive and I have learned so much from you … I want to see people set free through education … I want to teach people to love learning and love people. Someday, I will start a school community of my own that is unlike any other … Your faithfulness and passion are spreading like wildfire. ... [The truth WILL set you free.]” — anonymous

nascantur in admiratione,
Bob Love  RWLove@NorthfieldSchool.com, 316-686-0028
Northfield School Trustee