Head of the Princeton Studio of Recording for the Blind
Naomi Anne Young, always known as Anne, died at Stonebridge on May 12.
Her family of Kenneth, Alasdair, Gwyneth, Paige and Cameron were all with her and she expressed her love for them.
Anne was born in Bolton, England in 1936 to James and Annie Partington. She experienced the difficulties of wartime England before her father’s new job took the family to Aberdeen in northeast Scotland at the war’s end. She attended the local high school and Aberdeen University, where she graduated with a master's degree in English. She performed in many theatrical productions there and also met her husband to be.
A treasured memory was of sitting on top of a local mountain, Craigendarroch, at midnight with her then boyfriend, Kenneth, before the morning when their final exam results were to be announced.
She worked briefly at Harrods in London before taking up a seven-year teaching career in England and then in the Rhodesias, now Zambia and Zimbabwe. During this period she had become engaged to Kenneth but it was broken off. They continued to correspond and in 1965 she married him and came to the United States (she considered that she had her divorce before she got married).
Anne taught speed reading for students in Princeton to support her husband as he completed his Ph.D. at Princeton University. She broke off work to care for her two children, Alasdair and Gwyneth, but was active in volunteering for the Princeton University Art Museum and Recording for the Blind in Princeton.
Four years were spent in England while her husband worked at a branch of the University of Manchester. While her children were in school, she was able to indulge her interest in archaeology. She learned that there were complications to archaeology during her search for the route of Offa’s Dyke on the Welsh border when she was interrupted by curious young bullocks.
She returned to Princeton with her family at the end of 1974. Almost immediately she became the chairperson for the docents of the art museum, her necessary qualification being the spouse of a university faculty member. During her tenure, she oversaw the change of the constitution to make being a docent available to everybody, including men, and introduced training for new members. She was an active docent for many more years.
She was appointed to head the Princeton Studio of Recording for the Blind (RFB). During her many years in charge she lead the most productive of the RFB studios within the organization, saw it through its addition of dyslexic students, started its use in schools and added a secondary studio in Plainsboro. She retired as Executive Director of the New Jersey Unit of what has become “Learning Ally” and continued to read for them for many years.
After she retired, she devoted a lot of time to her garden. She travelled extensively with her husband in Europe round the ancient classical world and to many sites in Central and South America. She enjoyed wonderful safaris in Kenya and Botswana with her family. There were many trips to Scotland and England to see family and to enjoy the scenery, gardens and museums. Anne found peace in crouching over tidal rock pools or sitting by a gurgling mountain stream.
She is survived by her immediate family, her brother Noel Partington, his wife Jean and their three daughters, Lucy, Anna and Amy and their families, three nephews, Gordon, Robert and Peter Young and a number of cousins.
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