Faith Elizabeth (Reynolds) Adams was born January 11, 1923 in Toledo, Ohio to Harlan Cady Reynolds and Ruth Elizabeth Bryant Reynolds, the oldest of three children. Her younger sister, Judith Reynolds Brown, survives her, but her younger brother Harlan Kendall Reynolds died some thirty years ago.
She grew up in Seattle and graduated from Whitman College with a degree in English. After WWII she married Edgar M. Adams, Jr. They settled on a cattle ranch in Shawmut, Montana and raised three children, Lynn, Dan, and Kit. As the children reached high school, she returned to school at Eastern Montana College and acquired teaching credentials, teaching high school English in Billings.
Faith and Edgar were divorced in 1968. She returned to Seattle and attended the University of Washington School of Drama to become a stage designer. Upon completion of her Masters Degree, she worked as a professor of theater at Texas Tech University and at the University of Notre Dame.
Without a doctorate, she did not get tenure at the University of Notre Dame, so she left and accepted a job teaching English and coaching drama at a private English-language high school for girls in Izmir, Turkey, staying in Turkey for several years.
She returned to Seattle in 1979, home of both Lynn and Kit and his wife Asia.
She became a member of University Friends Meeting October, 1981. She was active with the arts in meeting, leading a reading of the play, “The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail,” and arranging art shows in the meetinghouse. She was part of the Fremont/Queen Anne Neighborhood Worship Group which met in a private home monthly.
She participated in a Quaker study group that met in a private home which grew out of a series of study groups organized by the Meeting. She was engaged and stubborn, a believer in the Quaker community. She had strong opinions and cared passionately. Faith was feisty and strong-willed; she described herself as “crusty”.
She also attended the Quaker worship group at the Washington State Reformatory in Monroe. She acted as an independent study advisor for one prisoner who was interested in drama and literature. She was actively involved when the group (prisoners and Quakers from the outside) made quilts for several group members when they had babies. When the worship group was laid down, she and other Quakers who had driven to Monroe continued to meet monthly for a dinner and movie night at one of the member’s homes.
Her third career was as an accountant at a community mental health agency where she worked until retirement in 1998 at age 75. She moved to a mother-in-law apartment in Lynn’s house and enjoyed the childhood and school years of her three grandchildren, Luke Adams, Thomas Adams, and Amelia Saul. She traveled to Germany numerous times to visit Dan and got to know his students and friends there. She remained in contact with friends from high school and college throughout her life.
She devoted the last decade of her life to fabric art, producing many wonderful works using quilting embellished with beads, buttons, twigs, small stones, figurines, found objects. She was a member of the Pacific Northwest Needle Arts Guild and showed her work in juried shows put on by the guild. In addition she had solo exhibits at University Friends Meeting.
She died Aug 6, 2014. A memorial was held on August 16, 2014 at University Friends Meeting.
She is survived by her sister, Judy Brown; children Lynn, Dan and Kit Adams; grandchildren Luke, Thomas and Amelia; and one great grandchild Eleanor.