Gretchen Fox, who, along with her husband, John O. Fox, opened her home to friends, family, and many members of the Amherst community, died there on November 2, 2018, her children by her side.
Elizabeth Gretchen Gause was born to Katherine Hansen and Bruce Gause on October 11, 1937, in Crescent City, California, where her great-grandfather, Nicholas McNamara, built the American Hotel with his brother in 1860. Her early years amid the redwoods instilled a lifelong love of the outdoors and adventure. At five, she moved to San Francisco with her parents and beloved older brothers, Rod and Richard. After high school and college, she lived in New York, London and South Carolina before returning to San Francisco. In 1963, while visiting her college roommate in Los Angeles, Gretchen met her future sister-in-law, Myra Fox. Myra immediately called John to let him know that she had met the woman he would marry. John and Gretchen eloped to Santa Barbara on September 1, 1964. They remained happily married for 54 years until his death on September 12, 2018.

The Foxes spent the first 20 years of their marriage in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C., where their two children were born. Dedicated to the arts and historic preservation, Gretchen worked at the National Endowment for the Humanities and volunteered at Don’t Tear it Down where, in the 1970s, she helped preserve historic buildings in downtown Washington.

Gretchen and John fell in love with Amherst, Massachusetts, and moved there in 1984. Gretchen studied art history and taught at Elms College in Chicopee. Along with John, she was elected to Amherst town meeting and worked hard to preserve it. In recent years, she studiously researched town records in a successful effort to acquire historic status for their close-knit neighborhood. She volunteered as an advocate for children in the foster care system and donated her time to the Bement School, which her children attended.

Gracious conveners of people, Gretchen and John hosted meetings, poetry groups, dinner parties, and out-of-town friends and family, highlighted by sleepovers with their granddaughters on their screened porch.
In winter months, Gretchen and John returned to their native California, where they saw cousins and dear friends in Palm Springs. Wherever she was, Gretchen could be found on the phone, keeping up with the many friends she made over the years. She cherished meeting old work friends at Laurel Lake each summer and baking fruitcakes with a high school friend each winter. She spent as much time as she could reading, cooking, planting, and observing life with her grandchildren.

Gretchen is survived by her son, Joe, and his partner, Stephanie Schriock, of Alexandria, VA, and by her daughter, Margaret, her husband, Andrew Carroll, and their children, Jessica Elizabeth and Hazel Myra, of Sydney, Australia.

A memorial Latin mass was held at the Newman Center in Amherst. Gifts of remembrance may be made to Save the Redwoods League, 111 Sutter Street, 11th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94014, or Friends of Children, 245 Russell St., Hadley, MA 01035.