Update on Memorial Gatherings for Constance:

1 year memorial June 2019 to correspond with IHIS Yearly Conference in England, TBA

We look forward to coming together to celebrate her life at a beautiful one year memorial of Contances life, legacy, vision, energy and character.

It was Constance wish that her article on the Brucker translation be published. Another wish has been expressed by those in her field that all her articles could be published in one book. We hope the one year memorial will give enough time to finish and present these projects. Please contact: Anne Blaney, Constance's oldest daughter, so we can set a task list and delegate how this can be accomplished. blaneyanne50@gmail.com. Thank you!

Memorial Gatherings held already:

April 13th, 7 pm : Croydon Geighbourhood Gathering, 1 Elmer's Road, Croyden (Constance's Address)

This Gathering was held for Constance's neighbours on Elmer's Road, Croydon. This was organized by Leslie, Constance's second daughter. It was Leslie and her family who had provided the Croydon house for Constance, a community and neighbourhood  Constance became very attached to. Equally, her community and neighbourhood was devasted by her sudden loss. It was so uplifting to gather together, at Leslie's invitation, and share our sadness together.  Leslie , Giles and Caroline decorated the house and displayed old pictures of our mother. They served refreshments, wine and cheese and it was a wonderful gathering where we all reminisced about Constance and shared our sadness and fond rememberances. 

April 18, 2018 4-6 pm.   Place: Warburg Institute, Woburn Square, Bloomsbury, London    WCIH OAB: Lecture room, ground floor

This gathering was attended to by at least 30 people. The de-facto Chairman of the Warburg welcomed us all, and Steven Clucas, Sarah Hutton and Leticia Panizza spoke fondly of Constance They spoke of her spirit and her energy to make inroads into the field of development of philosophy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They shared stories that made us laugh. It was so beautiful to see so manyn people at such short notice. People spoke about Constance's remarkable ability to network people on the international level. Everyone spoke of her character and her warmth. Anne and Theo, her children, both spoke. Anne showed a slideshow. Jenna, her grand daughter, attended from Newcastle and Anne Karanjaanne, who had caretaken for my mother for many years. Also an old neighbour from Gloucester Crescent.  Many international family and colleagues could not attend but sent in their regrets via email so it was wonderful to hear such an outpouring of sympathy from around the world. Thank you so much for those who did attend and it was a special treasure to me so see how much Constance was loved and enjoyed. Thank you to her brother John Taylor in California for sending flowers.

Optional dinner 6-8 pm at Old Amalfi's Restaurant, 107 Southhampton Row, London WCIB 4HH. (a few blocks away) 
Eight people attended the dinner at Old Amalfi's. We had a wonderful dinner and really enjoyed each other's company.  We ate wonderful food and toasted to Constance. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for attending the supper as well. It will be a memoriy I will always cherish.


Date of Interment of Ashes:
April 19th 1 pm
Place: Hampstead Cemetary, Fortune Green Road, West Hamopstead, London NW61DR.
Directions to the grave:
Enter the official cemetary gate, take an immediate right, and keep right (ignoring left turning paths). In about 1 minute you will walk towards a tall angel (Bianchi Memorial, see Wikipedia) and take a right on a dirt road. You will see a little meadow with similar looking small grave units. There is one intersecting path and Constance is buried at the first grave on the right.

We had a beautiful, unseasonally warm day. The birds were singing and all the daffodils and hyacinths had come up and the cherry trees in full bloom. Anne Karanjaane and I said our last goodbyes as we laid my mother's ashes to rest in a beautiful green urn tucked away under her plaque. She is resting peacefully now in a historic graveyard amidst writerts, poets and remarkable and ordinary people; amidst flower boxes gifted from Maudie Davis, her old college roomate, Anne K., John Taylor (her brother). We placed an angel and olive wood hearts with our families names on them on her plaque inscribed Constance Willett Taylor Blackwell, Historian of Philosophy, Beloved Mother, Sister, Friend and Colleague. I hung some birlds and a stained glass ornament from the Southwark Cathedral where she would sometimes go to hear organ music.

Hampstead Cemetary is a historic cemetary covering 26 acres and was created in 1812.  It has two gothic style chapels.  There is a map available of famous people buried there, with many writers, including Children's author Kate Greenaway, actors, musicians, artists, war memorials, and others. It is a natural setting with beautiful old trees, grasses, and wildflowers mixed with untouched historic graves. It's spring now and the blossoms are sweet and colorful and air is filled with the birds singing. Constance loved gardens and flowers.



This memorial website was created as a tribute, in memory of our loved one, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt, cousin, dear friend and beloved colleague, Constance Blackwell.  Constance will be greatly missed. 

Howard Hotson, a colleague, writes: "A unique patron of intellectual history worldwide and a timeless champion of many other worldy causes, a vividly unforgettable, unfettered spirit who was at the same time a natural team player, supporter and sustainer of others. Never met anyone like her. Never expect to again. Thanks for everything, Constance. You will be sorely missed."

Family
Constance is preceded in death by her father, Samuel Gale Taylor III and mother, Jane Willett, her first husband William Blackwell, life partner Charles Schmidt, and two young relatives: Charles’ son John and Constance's niece Deedee Taylor. Constance was a sister to her two brothers, John Taylor  (wife Barbara) and Sam Taylor (wife Bonnie) and an aunt to two nieces and three nephews. She was mother to Anne, Leslie and Theodore; step mother to John, Leo, Elizabeth; Nona to Jenna, Grandma Zoo to Caroline, Matthew and Nicholas, and Grandmother Constance to Ta’Kaiya, Sky, Carissa and Reuben; and Great-grandmother to six great grandchildren.

Life in New York City
During her many years holding a successful teaching career at New York City's Queens College, Constance juggled family, a position as the education advisor to the Mayor of New York City through her work in the NYC Women's City Club, and research  towards a PhD at Columbia University.

Move to London
She moved permanently to the country she loved and adopted, Great Britain, in the mid 1970s and lived in Camden.  She spent many happy hours at the British Museum's Rare Book Room and the Warburg Institute at the University of London where she pursued her PhD research. She quickly became an active member of the Society for Renaissance Studies and served as editor for their bulletin. 

Building the Foundation for Intellectual History
In 1988, she established a dream of hers to build a Foundation for Intellectual History.  James A. T. Lancaster, ISIH colleague, writes, "Constance played a key role in fostering the study of Intellectual History in 1994, publishing a regular newsletter, Intellectual News, which featured contributions from many of the key figures in the field.  Constance was an avid promoter of ambitious conferences which often resulted in associated publications: Method and Order in the Renaissance Philosophy of Nature: The Aristotle Commentary Tradition (1997); Philosophy of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: Conversations with Aristotle (1999) and Late Medieval and early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories (2001) all bear witness to her efforts." 

Organizing Seminars and Support of Student Scholars 
The purpose of the Foundation was pivotal and multi-faceted.  It's purposes included establishing international seminars for junior and senior scholars  mentiioned above, encouraging cooperative research across disciplines and natioonal borders. Most important to Constance, the Foundation funded fellowships for young scholars and Christopher Ligota's History of Scholarship Seminar at the Warburg Institute. The Foundation's support of scholars resulted in successful academic careers in the field that would not have been possible without her vision.

Helen Hattab writes, "I met Constance as a student and she set me on my current intellectual path by encouraging and inspiring me to delve into renaissance Artistotelianism. She will be missed by all our scholarly community."

The Foundation for Intellectual History was later to become the Internatiinal Society of Intellectual History (ISIH). As one of the founders, she edited 16 issues of the journal, Intellectual News. The Intellectual News was replaced by the Intellectual Historical Review in 2007.  Thomas A.T. Lancaster continues, "In 2016, Intellectual Historical Review published a Festsschrift for Constance with essays by many of her colleagues on the theme of "Studies in Intellectual Historiograhy." It was presented in a symposium in her honour and a highlight of her career. 

"During the course of her career, Constance published many articles on the scholastic authors that fascinated her, including Cajetano, Zimara, Pereira, Zabarella and Keckermann.  She worked intrensively on Johan Jakob Brucker's Historia Crutica Philosophiae (1742-1744). "(James A.T. Lancaster).

Constance also traveled widely, giving lectures and talks on her academic research. She delivered lectures all around the world, including The Russian Academy of Science in Moscow, in Germany and in Brazil.

Constance was published widely in the field of intellectual history including the history of skepticism, ariustotle and methodical doubt, viocabulary for a natural philosophy, the reception of the Simplicius in the sixth century, and the history of logic and it's relationship to Jakob Brucker's Historia critica philosphiae. She edited the translation of Santinello's Models of the Histiory of Philosophy and with Sachiko Kusukawa, Sixteenth-and-Seventeenth-Century Philosophy: Conversations witrh Aristotle.


Final Home (Croydon)
Constance moved to Croydon following the purchase of her house by her daughter, Leslie, and son-in-law, Giles.  Wanting to make life easier for her, they supported her financially and attended to many of her needs.  It was Constance's dream to remain independant as long as she could. 

Constance became very fond of  the community of Croydon where she lived on Elmers Road until her passing. She made friends with her neighbours and loved socializing with shop keepers and community members in the cafes. Anne Katherine Dolven, a neighnour and famous Norweigan photographer writes: " Later a neighbour, we had meals in her home with conversation I bring with me forever." It was a neighbour, John, who rushed Constance to the hospital when she became suddenly ill, only one week before she succumbed to her illness, advanced renal cancer.

"Constance will be sadly missed, not only by her family, but also by her many friends, collleagues, and scholarship recipients from her original Foundation, across the world."