Yvonne Katherine Lipke

Had we but world enough, and time…

Some of you know that line as the beginning of one of the greatest come-ons ever written. (It's by a seventeenth century Englishman named Andrew Marvell.) When I tried it on this cute, vivacious, charming woman she thought it terrific. Adopted it as “our poem.”

Twenty-one years wasn’t time enough with her.

And the East Coast and Gulf Coasts – Peru – Ireland, Greece, Rome – Ghana – Cancun – Hawaii -- and last year’s total eclipse--weren’t world enough either.

We loved each other. From time to time we disappointed each other, even hurt each other’s feelings. That’s marriage. Or perhaps, since in one of her last lucid moments she recognized the movie we were all watching in her bedroom as The Princess Bride, I should say, “Maa-wiage.”

Yvonne loved people. And people loved her. She spread more love around than anyone I ever met.

Shakespeare wrote of a character who loved “not wisely, but too well.” Maybe some of us could have benefited from a little more of her wisdom, a little less of her unconditional love. Not me. She shared her opinions with me plenty. She struggled to make her whole crazy family love each other as she loved us. She began to win that battle when she let it go: in her final weeks we got to appreciate each other’s strengths and accept our weaknesses as never before.

Yvonne Katherine LaMon was born in Maryville Tennessee on March 12, 1950. She never looked her age, thanks to her big smile and lovely skin she inherited from her mother, Katherine. Her people came from Dublin, Georgia, and vicinity. The family moved to Tampa at age two; her father died when she was five. She raised two passionate, caring, powerful daughters, almost entirely on her own. Took her mother into our home after the doctors had given up, and cared for her for five years.

I never met Yvonne’s first husband, Bill Montgomery, but I can say he made a huge mistake.

She earned her Bachelors degree in Education at USF while driving a ten-gang lawnmower-tractor at the Palma Ceia Country Club. Taught elementary special education for thirty-four years, first in Brooksville, then in Tampa. She was so proud, she said, of “teaching so many children with varying disabilities and with various gifts as well.”

She was too busy for hobbies, except collecting hippos, playing piano years ago and dancing, and whatever brought her closer to people. She loved singing, and listening: she had a great talent for the latter, and wasn’t half-bad, as the British say, at the former. She demonstrated, rallied and worked as a foot-soldier for justice and fairness. She threw herself into causes. The Hillsborough Organization for Peace and Equality, Women of Faith Building Community, the Obama Campaign, Daughters of the King and the vestry at her church. She hated injustice, cruelty, fear, prejudice—she never understood racism—greed, exploitation, misogyny and sexism, rudeness, scapegoating, meddling bureaucrats....

Her faith was one of her strongest qualities by far. It scared me at first, an agnostic Jew marrying a “born again” “cradle” Episcopalian, but she never let religion—or politics—come between her and anyone. Yvonne was like the early twentieth-century humorist Will Rogers, who said “I never met a man I didn’t like.” When I told her that, she said “I don’t like Trump!” and I said “but you never actually met him, did you?” She’d have found a way. And maybe it would’ve improved him a bit.

There’s no way a little list of accomplishments can sum her up. She was so strong, so committed to life. Not long after we got engaged, she told me I didn’t want to marry her because she was selfish and stubborn and used to deciding things for herself. And I thought it mighty selfish of her to be saying such unpleasant things about this neat, fascinating girl who was willing to trade a classy name like “LaMon” for a shlubby one like “Lipke.” I’m so lucky she shared her life with me.

A half-brother and half-sister predeceased her. She’s survived by two-and-a-half daughters: Leslie Diane Conway, Jennifer Montgomery, and Norma Espinosa Kiley, and four-and-a-half grandchildren: Meghan Truax; Joshua, Rebecca and Josiah Conway, and James Kiley; by her sister Vivian and half-brother Philip, and me, Alan Lipke. And by all who loved her.

Please send donations in her name to;

* the Hillsborough Organization for Progress and Equality (HillsHope.com);

* Partners in Health (PIH.org);

* Families Raising, Inspiring, Educating and Networking for DOWN SYNDROME WEST

FLORIDA (https://friendsdownsyndrometampa.com/) and

* Planned Parenthood (plannedparenthood.org). 

Please see http://www.tampabay.com/news/Hooper-One-man-s-love-letter-touches-hearts_170380951