A teacher of children with reading disabilities, who was also a published poet and a singer, died Dec. 31, writes Gary Miles for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Fay Gardner Lawton, 96, of Haverford, was an educator at Greene Street Friends School and the Bryn Mawr College Child Study Institute.

At age 74, she published her first book of poetry, Ringing Changes. She sang in choirs and directed a singing group.

Daughter Pamela Lawton describes her mother as her “best friend.”

“She was gentle and showed us unconditional love. She was witty and playful. We tried to make her mad and couldn’t.”

Mrs. Lawton grew up in Rhode Island in the Depression, part of an artistic and musical family.

She graduated Vassar College with plans to help  Germany’s post-World War II reconstruction.

Instead,   she became an assistant to New Yorker magazine editor Harold Ross.

She married Dr. M Powell Lawton, a world-renowned behavioral psychologist and authority on aging. They had three children.

The two progressive, pacifist Quakers shared a love of music, civil rights and social justice.

They lived in Royersford and Collegeville before moving to the Quadrangle in Haverford in 2000.

Read more about the life of Fay Gardner Lawton at The Philadelphia Inquirer.