Rebecca Jocelyn Henderson passed away at age 70 on March 4, 2014 in Santa Fe NM, from complications of myelofibrosis, a rare blood cancer. She was born August 29, 1943 to Arthur James Henderson and Sada Thompson Henderson of Paul- lina, Iowa, and grew up in Paullina Monthly Meeting of Iowa Yearly Meeting, Conservative. Her sister Matilda was born fourteen years earlier. They had a grandparent in each of four major Paullina Meeting families, so were related to almost everyone in the Meeting.
As she was growing up, some still spoke the plain language and many wore the plain clothes or dressed plainly. Respect was shown to children, who sat through the entire hour of Meeting every First Day, went to Business Meeting after about age 10, and were included on committees after age 12 or so. Rebeccaʼs father rented farms for a diversified operation of crops and livestock. She thoroughly enjoyed the farm, helping raise the animals, doing field work, gardening, and participating in 4-H. Rebecca left home at age 14 to attend Scattergood Friends School, spending summers at home on the farm, and graduating in 1961.
Rebecca attended Earlham College for several years until 1964, when she decided to become a landscape architect and transferred to Iowa State University in Ames. There she was suddenly out of the Quaker cocoon, encountering blatant sexism in a department where she was the only woman. At the Quaker Meeting in Ames she found rest and friendliness. Finding connections to the growing student movement, she protested against racial discrimination and made trips to Washington to protest against poverty and the escalating war in Vietnam.
Rebecca found herself deeply in love with her roommate, who was not a les- bian. At a demonstration in Washington in 1965 she saw women together holding hands in broad daylight, her first glimpse of out-of-the-closet, political lesbians. She came to realize that she was a lesbian and that there were others like her. She discovered and found comfort in Toward a Quaker View of Sex.
In the summer of 1966 Rebecca was a camp counselor at YMCA Camp Widgiwagan near Ely, Minnesota, making several canoe trips with campers through the Boundary Waters Area, one of the peak experiences of her life. In 1968 she received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Landscape Architecture from Iowa State.
Rebecca worked eight years for Stanley Consultants, doing recreation planning for the State of Ohio and environmental impact analyses for transmission lines, coal-fired power plants, rural electrification, and waterway improvements. She was a closeted lesbian under pressure to assimilate into mainstream heterosexual culture, learning how to deal with a difficult homophobic boss. She also became aware of the looming environmental crisis that people around her had no knowledge of yet.
Rebecca moved to Iowa City in 1970, becoming active in the Iowa City Friends Meeting, serving as Clerk and Recording Clerk, meetinghouse resident, and on the Scattergood School Committee. She was active with Friends World Committee for Consultation, representing Iowa Yearly Meeting, Conservative, at the FWCC Triennial in Sidney, Australia in 1973. On the way there she visited Japan for two weeks, visiting famous gardens in Kyoto and discovering how little she really knew about landscape design. She was deeply moved and humbled seeing the spiritual foundation in the natural world of Japanese gardens. This was the beginning of tremendous respect for non-white cultures, and a lessening of her arrogance.
In 1975 when Stanleyʼs got a contract to work on the Trident nuclear submarine base, she recognized that she could not work with them and continue to be a pacifist, so she resigned. She came to realize that her work of reducing public opposition to public utility engineering projects and nuclear power plants did not serve the long-term survival of the environment.
Rebecca prepared to suffer for her principles, but instead began thriving because she could now live by those principles and let them shape her life. She developed ideas about simple living and an ethical low-income life-style, and when her car died she didn't replace it and managed quite well without one. A lower income made it possible to pay less tax to the military, a step toward more complete war tax resistance later.
She finally was able to come out of the closet and be open and honest about being a lesbian. She was delighted to find a lesbian community in Iowa City working on issues close to her heart: equality, justice, peace, and feminism.
She entered the field of bookbinding, creating Prairie Fox Publications in 1977. She hand bound editions of 500 to 1000 books for small presses, made journal books, and more than 600 cloth-covered boxes to protect rare books for the University of Iowa Special Collections, made to exactly fit each book. Because Iowa Quakers were not ready to be accepting of lesbians and gays, and because Rebecca was unwilling to continue to hide her true self, with sorrow and great disappointment she quietly withdrew from Quaker work and Meeting in 1975.
Rebeccaʼs health crashed and she developed sensitivities to many chemicals and pollutants, eventually traced to the furnace at her bindery, which was leaking carbon monoxide. She became unable to work, and in 1985 sold her bindery. That same year, in her first openly lesbian relationship, Rebecca moved with Quinn Dilkes to Albuquerque, New Mexico, for better air and healing. There, she was employed at the University of New Mexico for five years in various departments.
Rebecca walked 1700 miles mostly in New Mexico and Colorado, in four summers. The vigorous movement of air through her lungs helped her regain her health enough so that she was able to work full time during the winters. After carrying her backpack on her back the first year, she invented a two-wheeled cart to carry it and extra water. Walking part of the year reduced her income so that she could earn less than the taxable income and thus not pay for war.
Through encouragement from Al-Anon meetings and after being away for 10 years, Rebecca returned to attending Quaker meeting in Albuquerque, which was supportive of gays and lesbians. In the fall of 1987, Rebecca and Quinn went to the historic Gay March on Washington at which half a million marched, and two days later they were among the 600 arrested in mass non-violent civil disobedience at the Supreme Court. In 1988, they protested at the Nevada nuclear test site with more than 8,000 people. Quinn moved back to Iowa in 1988.
In 1989, Rebecca met Pelican Lee at the end of her summer walk, and in 1990 Rebecca moved to live with Pelican in Santa Fe. In May 1992, Rebecca and Pelican married under the care of Paullina Meeting, with the wedding conducted by Albuquerque Meeting. Rebecca joined Pelican at yearly womenʼs Lakota Sundances, a safe place for lesbian Native Americans to participate in one of their most sacred ceremonies. This loving community became significant in their lives.
In Santa Fe, Rebecca worked at the Museum of New Mexico Foundation until 1997. She also tutored children who had trouble reading and did housecleaning and data entry.
Rebecca, Pelican, and others bought 100 acres of land that became West Wind, a lesbian intentional community near Ribera, NM. Rebecca built a straw bale house and oversaw the construction of Pelicanʼs straw bale house, teaching building skills to many women in the process. They used solar energy and rainwater collection. Rebecca focused on experimental gardening, finding ways to minimize water use and maintain organic soil fertility in the arid, windy climate, and enjoyed keeping chickens. Rebecca and Pelican (and their chickens) lived half the week in Santa Fe and half the week at West Wind.
In Santa Fe Monthly Meeting, Rebecca served as Clerk, Recording Clerk, on Ministry and Counsel, and many other committees. In 1994 Rebecca served on the lo- cal committee for the FWCC Triennial at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. In 2003 she attended the FWCC Consultation in Greensboro. She served as Clerk, as representative to Friends Peace Teams, and on Nominating, Structure, and Procedures Committees of Intermountain Yearly Meeting.
In 2006, Rebecca was diagnosed with myelofibrosis, a rare blood cancer that she lived with for over seven years, longer than she expected. In those years she was a leader in the restructuring of Intermountain Yearly Meeting, conducted clerking workshops, and was speaker at several Quaker gatherings. She wrote and published Ingridʼs Tales: A Norwegian-American Quaker Farming Story, about her life growing up in the Paullina Quaker community, and a booklet, “Quaker Practice and Business Meetings.”
Rebecca will be greatly missed by the many Quakers whose lives she touched. She nurtured new Friends and became her monthly meetingʼs informal consultant for just about every project, committee, and connection to other Quaker groups. She was truly an elder and exemplified how to live Friendly principles of simplicity, compassion, equality, and peace building – being guided by the Light in all. Unquestionably, Rebecca will be remembered for her wide smile and delighted chuckle, unswerving optimism, courage, and passion for right action.
Rebecca is survived by her beloved wife Pelican Lee Ellen Ackerman, her sister Matilda Hansen of Laramie, WY, nephews, Eric Michener (Kay) of Fairfield IA, and Douglas Michener (Jill) of Breckenridge CO, great-nephews Jamie Michener of Washington DC and Mark Michener of Denver, nieces Chelsea Ackerman of Seattle and Serendipiti Mariah Ackerman of Omaha, and a wide circle of friends.
Historical Footnote: Rebecca died March 4 2014 at Christus St. Vincent Hospital in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her body was cremated. She is buried in the cemetery of the Meeting House in Paullina, Iowa where her parents and 9 of her 12 grandparents and great grandparents are also buried.