Dana Katherine Greene

Dana Katherine Greene (1942-2023) died at dawn on December 29 in the arms of her beloved husband of fifty-five years, Richard Roesel. She was shepherded back into the universe by the singing of her children, Kristin, Justin, Lauren and Ryan, and invocations of the women whose own spirits she animated through her nine biographies of their lives and work - Lucretia Mott, Olympia Brown, Evelyn Underhill, Maisie Ward, Denise Levertov, Elizabeth Jennings and Jane Kenyon.

Through her last moments, Dana continued to exemplify the principles that have guided her journey through the world: commitment to the life of the spirit, to care and thought for others, to the development of the mind and intellect, and to justice in the world.

Dana began her life in Port Monmouth, New Jersey where she lived with her parents, Charles and Dorothea Greene, sisters, Mary and Karen and brother David. It was here that she developed the qualities of leadership and social justice activism that would guide her later in leadership roles. In high school, she was the president of her county-wide Girl Scout organization, member of student council, and National Honor Society. In an early act of commitment to justice and advocacy for change she returned the Daughters of the American Revolution Good Citizenship award in protest over its exclusion of African-American contralto Marian Anderson for their award.

She graduated from the College of New Rochelle where she wrote her senior thesis on Dorothy Day, journalist and activist who became Catholic without abandoning either her writing or her activism. Channeling this early mentor, Dana engaged in activist Catholic journalism throughout her life, writing numerous articles for the National Catholic Reporter where she highlighted the work of Catholics living around the globe doing the work of Jesus, tending to the poor and disempowered, often meeting them in places she traveled, such as Deir Mar Musa monastery in Syria.

After graduating from college, she rejected expectations for a life of domestic motherhood that was supposed to follow her education and instead, followed John F. Kennedy’s admonition to “ask not what your country can do for you” and joined the second group of Peace Corps volunteers to go overseas. She served for two years in Tilaran, Costa Rica where she taught English, and hilariously for those who have known and loved her, also science and dance. She was undaunted in her desire to explore, taking a bus alone to Guatemala and hitching a ride on a mail plane to the just-rediscovered ruins of Tikal, and accidentally crossing the Iron Curtain into the Soviet Union on a one-day amnesty and making her way back by endearing herself to kind and helpful locals.

Further defying expectations of her, she earned her Master’s Degree in History from Northern Illinois University and then her PhD in Humanities at Emory University where she met Richard at church services at their local Newman House. Overlooking his grease-stained shirt, she saw in him what would become the foundation for their fifty-five year partnership: that he was truly “for” her in every way and that he was, like her, committed to a life of the mind and the spirit, even if ideas about how that manifested in their lives differed.

She proved wrong the people who said she couldn’t be both a successful mother and wife and a working teacher and scholar by raising four daughters who used her example as a guide in their own lives and careers. With the support of Richard as her partner, she enriched the lives of countless students as a history professor and Associate Provost for Faculty at St. Mary’s College of Maryland to which she drove hundreds of miles for thirty years, and then as Dean and CEO of Oxford College of Emory University, helping it grow under her leadership. She undertook the writing of countless books, articles, and papers, as well as attended conferences and trips abroad from Cameroon to the People’s Republic of China through awards from various organizations supporting learning and scholarship.

Her spiritual journey through this world continued to be a guiding force in her life, one that allowed her to bring the fullness of herself to the service of others. She reflected deeply during daily, candle-lit silent meditations, filling herself with the love of God, after which she prayed for constantly evolving lists of people in need of support. She attended religious services in many faiths, including and especially her Catholic one, and actively worked in service of the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation, the Green Bough House of Prayer, the Evelyn Underhill Association and the Aquinas Catholic Center.

Dana also shared her spirit in more worldly ways, sending hundreds of Christmas cards and personal notes for life events, organizing social events for herself and Richard, traveling for joy and learning with Richard and her children, teaching English to immigrants at the Campagna Center, keeping up with her Spanish in a language group run by friends, and visiting friends and family around the globe.

In her last days, she continued to pursue the cultivation of her spiritual life by reading poetry and prose to help her embrace the next journey of her spirit, to send notes of care to her friends and family, to receive visitors, to seek publication of her compiled meditations, and to continue to learn and grow through reading and writing. She packed ten lives into her one sojourn on Earth and lived with joy, with constancy, with grace and compassion all the minutes of her life. As her body and spirit rejoin the cosmos, she continues to nourish all of us whose lives she touched.

Dana will be interred by immediate family at Cool Springs Cemetery in Berryville, Virginia. Memorial services for all who loved her will be held the weekend of February 17-18 at Mt. Vernon Unitarian Church in Alexandria, VA.

Contact: Justin Greene, [email protected] for questions on services

Dana's memorial mass was recorded and can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/live/dDpk1Mne-2A?feature=shared

In lieu of gifts, you may make a donation to Dana's chosen charities:

St Mary's College of Maryland Scholarship Fund smcm.edu

Green Bough House of Prayer in Adrian, GA

Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation shalem.org

National Catholic Reporter ncronline.org

Evelyn Underhill Association http://evelynunderhill.org/contact/