Arline Gesswein Terrell

Arline Gesswein Terrell died peacefully at her home in San Antonio, Texas, with her faithful cat Lars by her side.

She is survived by her children, March Terrell Henley of Woody Creek, Colorado; John Rigby Terrell of Pacifica, California; Melissa Terrell Moss (Douglas) of Eureka, California; and Kate Terrell Castillo (John) of San Antonio. She is also survived by five cherished grandchildren—Lizzie, Hannah, Geddes, Henry, and Lucy—her great-granddaughter, Lyla, and another great-granddaughter, Maisie, soon to join the family. She was the widow of her beloved husband, Robert Baynham Terrell. She was preceded in death by her brother, Paul “Skip” Gesswein, and is survived by her brother, Richard “Dick” Gesswein, and his wife, Renate.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Arline later moved to Rye, where she attended Milton School before graduating from Rye High School. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cornell University and was a member of the Beta Tau and Psi Chapters of Kappa Kappa Gamma, as well as Alpha Gamma, the honorary society for women in the fine arts.

From an early age, the Noyes School of Rhythm in Portland, Connecticut, became one of the defining influences of her life. She studied there as a young girl and remained faithful to the philosophy of Noyes Rhythm. She shared the joy of creative movement wherever she lived, teaching creative dance to children and adults alike. She also worked in hospital settings, using art as a therapeutic tool, and created performances with and for people of all ages.

Arline grew up in a multigenerational household with her parents, grandparents, great aunts, and her two younger brothers, Dick and Skip. The respect “Sis” earned from her younger brothers carried naturally into the way she later raised her own children, as she learned early to relate to younger people with respect rather than dominance. She reared her children as individuals—respecting the growing independence of her son while encouraging her daughters to become capable, confident women. Among Arline’s earliest memories was being placed outside in her pram in all seasons, where she would lie looking up through the branches of the trees and into the sky. Nearly a century later, she still sought the outdoors each day, spending her afternoons reading and writing outside, whether in the fierce Texas heat or the raw chill of winter.

Arline learned early how to work hard, relegated to the brightwork—sanding and staining teak—on her father’s schooner, the Silvercrest. It often came at the expense of her high-school social life, though word is she attracted company while she worked.

At Cornell, she studied art and created a variety of cast-plaster and carved-wood sculptures as well as figurative and abstract paintings reflecting the art of the mid-century. Exercising every opportunity to express herself artistically, Arline created a magical world for her family. Once, the family had to walk a plank from the hallway to the toilet to avoid stepping on a drying mural of outer space on the bathroom floor. At other times, they were banned from the kitchen while one of her ever-changing painted rugs dried on the floor. She continued sculpting in clay and painting in oils for most of her long life.

It was their mutual love of opera that brought Arline and Robert (Bob) Terrell together. They married and went on to raise four children during 56 years of marriage, with opera records providing the soundtrack to their family life. Arline delighted not only in the music, but also in the beauty of Opera News magazine, whose colorful centerfolds she lovingly repurposed into a decoupaged wall.

During those early years, Bob was a reporter for the Hartford Courant, while Arline wrote a dietary column for The Connecticut Dairy Council and newsletters for the Noyes School. She was one of the curators at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford. Later, she was also on the board of the Canton Gallery on the Green, and her children have vivid memories of a one-woman art show she had there that included a life-size sculpture of a revered cat.

Arline and Bob moved with their three children from Canton, Connecticut, to Baltimore, Maryland, and eventually settled for many years in Newport News and Mathews, Virginia. Their fourth child, Kate, arrived when Melissa was a teenager and March and Rig were heading off to college.

Arline shared her love of movement and creativity by teaching creative dance to children at the Peninsula Ballet, later the Virginia Ballet. She delighted audiences by portraying the witch in productions such as Sleeping Beauty and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, relishing the rare opportunity to be delightfully wicked—a joyful contrast to her genuinely gentle and compassionate nature.

An early riser, Arline was a prolific writer. She maintained a lifelong practice of writing letters, poetry, articles, and newsletters, many of which were published in local newspapers and literary collections, including those of the National League of American Pen Women. In her later years, poetry became an increasingly central part of her life. After joining Facebook, she embraced the discipline of writing and sharing a haiku every day, finding beauty in ordinary moments and inviting others to pause and notice the wonder around them. Her beloved little black dog, Alister, was often her muse.

As a member of Hilton Presbyterian Church, she developed children’s programs and taught at the church preschool. In the 1980s she founded a sacred dance ensemble called The Moving Spirit. Alongside her beloved dance sisters, she choreographed and performed meaningful presentations in churches, celebrating the spiritual significance of the Christian seasons and holidays through music and movement.

Early in their marriage, Arline and Bob purchased a small house in Nantucket, which they turned into an architectural jewel on the tip of the island when it was still largely wild and unspoiled. After 20 years, they sold their treasured Nantucket home, making possible another chapter by the water. Retiring to the Chesapeake Bay Area in Virginia, they lovingly restored an old farmhouse overlooking a creek and named their new home Yarrow, a flower traditionally associated with healing, protection, and enduring love. There, Arline’s lifelong connection to the natural world found one of its fullest expressions. She transformed the landscape into an artful sanctuary, cultivating expansive herb and vegetable gardens while weaving together her passions for art, nature, and community. Yarrow became a gathering place for family, Noyes friends, their daughters’ weddings, and many joyous occasions. From their converted barn, Arline taught clay sculpture and basket weaving using materials gathered from the surrounding woods. Beneath a circle of cedar trees surrounding a Peace Pole, she led circle dances, wrote poetry, and founded a women’s group called The Tiger Lilies. Together they celebrated the rhythms of the seasons through dance, honoring the solstices, the harvest, and the enduring cycles of the earth.

Kate, the youngest of Arline and Bob’s four children, was still growing up as they began their life at Yarrow and remembers happy hours on the creek in the family rowboat, The Blood Vessel, usually with a dog (and sometimes the cat) along for the ride. Dogs were constant companions in Arline and Bob’s life, a devotion shared with their daughter March, whose visits often included a dog—or several—of her own. Over the years, March brought four beloved dogs into Arline and Bob’s lives, including three generations of golden retrievers—grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter—much to Kate’s delight.

For a time, before settling in Texas, Arline and Bob lived in North Carolina near March and her son, Henry. At Henry’s Good Food they delighted in watching their grandson eagerly chop vegetables and help serve customers. Arline’s homemade breads were an early inspiration to March, who went on to make baking an enduring part of her livelihood.

Often, when Rig visited his parents at Yarrow, a building project idea would hatch. And once again, as had happened countless times before, a room would become a construction site undergoing a transformation. Arline and Bob had always been quite the design/build team, with her eye for color, proportion, and beauty finding its way into every project.

Some years later in Texas, the tradition continued when Rig and Kate renovated Arline’s casita behind her house, installing a large window that opened it to views of her garden and painting the interior in tropical colors. Of course, Arline was still chief designer and color-choice technician. His visits became a familiar part of family life, usually with a project underway, but always with time to enjoy being together.

Melissa shared her mother’s deep connection to dance and went on to make it her profession. In recent years, she has also been working in clay, inspired by her mother. She was married at Yarrow, and after she and Doug settled in California, they returned to Yarrow with their daughters, Lizzie and Hannah, bringing another generation home. The girls played dress-up and danced with “LiLi,” and Hannah remembers her handing her a tomato straight from the vine, still warm from the sun—a favorite snack ever since.

Years later, Arline made her final journey away from home to attend Lizzie’s wedding. There, with the help of her son Rig, she took the dance floor once more and danced with all four of her children.

Another generation followed with the birth of Lizzie’s daughter, Lyla. Arline met her great-granddaughter on her own birthday, which that year fell on Thanksgiving. With the family gathered around her bed, she was asked what she would like to say to everyone. At the heart of her words was the hope that they would all keep in touch with one another. The family continues to grow, with Lyla’s little sister, Maisie, soon to join them.

Arline and Bob had moved to San Antonio in 2002. They became active members of the Unitarian Universalist Church, where they especially cherished the exceptional music program and the beautiful acoustics of the sanctuary. Arline continued creating and sharing her gifts by welcoming friends into her studio for clay sculpture gatherings and by designing meditative movement experiences and seasonal celebrations. A gifted bread baker and flower arranger, she brought fresh loaves and abundant floral arrangements to Sunday services. She also created and installed an outdoor clay sculpture titled Demeter, a lasting gift to the church community.

For many summers, Arline directed the Noyes Junior School and served on the Foundation Board. She taught morning classes at the Senior Camp. The last Noyes Rhythm class Arline taught was an online gathering set to Philip Glass’s Mad Rush. Through her poetic stream-of-consciousness guidance, she invited participants to reconnect with the rhythms of the earth, the movement of nature, the vastness of the cosmos, and with one another. It was a fitting reflection of the gift she offered throughout her life: helping people discover beauty, belonging, and a deeper connection to the world and to each other.

Five years after Robert’s passing, Arline found love and companionship again. Introduced on a blind date, she and Albert Pike became companions for the next 13 years. Albert was a veteran who played the bagpipes at memorial services for homeless veterans and practiced on the terrace outside her home. He often brought her flowers and, when she was convalescing, came faithfully to sit by her bedside each day. He passed away before Arline, but his presence brought warmth and meaning to her later years. She was, after all, a romantic at heart, and she loved love.

Just as Arline grew up in a multigenerational household, she spent the final years of her life surrounded by family. After Bob passed, her daughter Kate, son-in-law John, and their children Geddes and Lucy, moved in with her, creating a home where generations once again shared their lives. Lucy played the piano daily for “LiLi” while Geddes enjoyed visiting with her each day and valued the perspective she shared with him over the years. Sharing a home gave Arline the rare gift of watching Geddes and Lucy grow day by day, from little children through adolescence and into young adulthood.

Kate, too, became an artist, and she and Arline found pleasure in collaborating over the years. Among their later projects was a book pairing Arline’s poetry with Kate’s drawings. John brought his bright energy to the household and was always ready to lend a hand, helping Arline with projects and finding ways to bring her ideas to life. Having lost his own mother many years before, he treasured having a mother in his life again.

As the years passed, Arline became the family elder—deeply admired and cherished as their lives intertwined. Together they found joy in home and garden projects, in the companionship of one another, and in their shared love for the many pets who were always part of the family. When she became confined to her bed, she lay beside a wall of portraits she had painted of her family, with windows opposite, through which she could still gaze at the sky and trees.

Little Dog Wisdom

Little dog sits on top step

looking out on his world

as if he owns it, and he does.

He cannot see over the roof

nor does he need to.

He looks across the terrace

as if it was the other side of the world,

which it is, and he is content.

                -Arline Terrell

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Arline’s memory to:

The Noyes School of Rhythm Foundation

c/o Meg Brooker

2111 18^th Street

Northport, AL 35476