8TH GENERATION BEVERLY SUE HOPSON

8^th Hopson generation

Beverly Sue Hopson

(1950-1997)

photos

Beverly Hopson 1974

Bev and Pudgie 1988

Beverly Sue Hopson was born 23 December 1950 in Covington, Kenton Co., KY, the youngest of six children of Thomas Jefferson Hopson, Jr., and Beulah Frances Ransdell.

She graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a B.A. degree in psychology and earned a Master’s degree in counseling from California State University at Northridge.

She was married twice to wonderful men, both still living. Her greatest regret was that she never had children.

She worked in Los Angeles as a social worker helping mentally challenged adults to live independently and in group homes.

She was beautiful, smart, talented, kind, compassionate, and suffered all her life with depression. On January 27, 1997, she took her own life. She was 46 years old.

* * * *

Happy Memories of Bev

Bev was barely out of infancy when we moved from Covington to the Charter Oak Road house on the outskirts of Edgewood, or as it seemed to us, “out in the country.” Dad bought just a house and lot but it was surrounded by a huge tree-filled farm -- “the woods” where Dad went walking and collecting fossils, catching tadpoles in the creeks, gathering ripe pears from the orchard no one ever harvested, picking blackberries, and sharing with his kids his knowledge of nature. No one was more receptive than Bev, and in her was kindled a lifelong love of the outdoors.

Bev once wrote about some of her childhood memories:

“I have a good memory of coming home from church on Sunday afternoon to a dinner of fried chicken and mashed potatoes, and playing in the sunshine all afternoon. Every day – without exception – of my childhood and most of my teenage years I went for a hike “back in the woods.” It’s too bad you guys don’t still have those woods – they were wonderful. Also, riding horses at Mannings. And doing everything with my “sidekick,” Marg.”

Bev became passionate about horses at an early age. Maybe it was the imaginary game she played with Marg that grew to a love of real horses and a love of riding. Fortunately for her, for a few years a family lived on Charter Oak Road, not far from our house, who let Bev ride their horses. She remembered it as a very special time in her life, that those people seemed to have lived there just for her enjoyment. She reminisced about it in a letter: “For a child who was obsessed with horses, I think I was phenomenally lucky that Mannings moved in next to us and I had the opportunity to spend most of my childhood with horses. Then, when I grew up and was working and about to leave home, Mannings moved away. It was sort of like they were put there just for me during that time.”

Bev had the blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin that Pat and I had, and she grew to five feet, five inches, which qualified as statuesque in our family. To say Bev was the prettiest of the five sisters would be damning her with faint praise; she was pretty by any standards.

From the Cincinnati Enquirer dated June 1, 1970: “Winner of the Cincinnati Literary Club’s $50 prize for the best essay of 1969-70 is Beverly Sue Hopson, 19, of 3004 Charter Oak Road, Ft. Mitchell. Her essay was titled, ‘On Understanding Modern Art.’ Beverly has achieved a perfect 4.0 average and is on the dean’s list at the UC Evening College. She has been awarded the Phi Kappa Epsilon Scholarship. Beverly, a 1968 Dixie Heights graduate, works at Studio Art Associates, Inc. She is the youngest of six children of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas J. Hopson. Her dad is a carrier with the Cincinnati Post Office.”

In the summer of 1970 Bev joined a tour group and went to Europe for a month. She didn’t know any of the people in the group before the tour, but that didn’t matter to her. She sent me a postcard from London, and when she returned home, she typed a fourteen-page, single-spaced letter to me telling me all about her trip in glowing detail. She began, “I’m finally home after a month of traveling, experiencing and gaining more knowledge than I’ve managed to accumulate in 19 years of living in Fort Mitchell.”

Bev grew up to be a truly beautiful young woman. A studio portrait of her at twenty-two, dated June 1973, could easily have been one of those Breck shampoo ads in which the models had such impossibly perfect hair. She had the loveliest hands, always beautifully manicured (never with those awful fake nails); in fact, one time her hands were photographed for a Visa credit card ad. From high school on, she wore her hair in a shoulder length, casual style with bangs to soften her high forehead.

She worked as a promotion writer and then promotion director at WKRC-TV in Cincinnati for three years. Mom wrote me several times about famous celebrities whom Bev was called upon to host and entertain while they were in town for personal appearances.

As Pat put it, “Even as a child Bev had great aspirations and heady dreams; she alone of our immediate family always stood out from the pack, never content to settle for ordinary things. Instead, she reached for the stars, made ambitious plans and goals for her life, always looking far beyond our more commonplace existence.”

Bev’s first marriage was to a man she described in a letter to me as “the nicest, kindest person I’ve ever known.” He made it possible for her to go to the University of Cincinnati full time as she worked toward her degree in psychology.

In August 1976 she wrote: “We just got a little puppy – she’s a chocolate brown part cockapoo. She’s pretty, I think, and has a great personality. She just loves everybody.” That was Pudgie, and when asked what breed she was, Bev and her husband would always say “little brown dog.” She was to be for sixteen years Bev’s dearest companion, and it’s not stretching it to say, her only child.

Pudgie really was a remarkably smart, well-behaved little dog, and it’s easy to see why Bev was so fond of her. She would play fetch with a tennis ball for as long as any human had the strength to throw it to her. She could catch Frisbees with amazing skill. And when given her Christmas present, she held it down with her paws and carefully tore the wrappings off it with her teeth.

Bev made the Dean’s List in the Autumn and Winter quarters of 1976-77 and she was very busy, as she finished work on her degree at U.C. Also, she was invited to join Psi Chi, the national honor society for psychology majors.

Bev graduated from the University of Cincinnati with her B.A. in psychology, cum laude, on June 12, 1977. Mom and Dad attended the commencement at U.C.’s Nippert Stadium, and Mom wrote me that it was a beautiful evening for an outdoor ceremony of that kind. She also noted gratefully that they did not call out the names of the 4800 graduates. The next day Bev and her husband (and, of course, Pudgie) moved to L.A. Bev absolutely loved Los Angeles, and continued to do so as long as she lived.

In a letter to the family she wrote, “On Christmas Day we went to the beach and drove along the coastline for miles and miles. We got out at a few places, and it was so funny to see Pudgie. She loves the beach, but is frightened of water. So she ventures out as far as she can, and when the waves come in, she turns around and runs like crazy. There are bicycle trails on some of the beaches, and it looked like so much fun that we went out Monday and bought each other 10-speed bikes. They match – they’re both metallic blue. We got them on sale at Sears, and they’re really good bikes for the money. So if any of the kids come out to visit me, we can pack up our bikes, drive to the beach, and ride for miles.

“I have a guitar now and this Thursday night I’m taking the first of ten lessons at the Burbank City Center. We went to the Rose Parade on January 2, and thoroughly enjoyed that.”

She was accepted into the Master’s Degree program in Counseling at California State University at Northridge.

In 1979 she wrote to me, “I had a job interview yesterday which went really well, and I’m waiting to hear from them now. I would be the Director of an Activity Center for chronically mentally ill people and Coordinator of Volunteers. The organization is the Mental Health Association of the San Fernando Valley, and part of my job would be to recruit, screen, train, supervise, and evaluate volunteers for all their programs. Since I’ve been a volunteer myself for so long, I would really love this kind of work.”

Bev did get that much-wanted job, and for the rest of her working life she was employed in the mental health field, in several different agencies. As someone whose educational fields were psychology and counseling, she seemed to have found an ideal place, and for years she loved it.

In 1980 she wrote, “My job is going great now! Our contract has been refunded, after all, and I’ve gotten a promotion. I’m now Program Director – and a large raise effective July 1. I’m so glad it worked out, because I really love working for this organization and wanted to continue if I possibly could. I agree that it’s important to work with a large group of amiable people. My arrangement is quite nice – I work very independently, based in a quiet office where I’m either alone or with 1 or 2 other people – but my field work puts me in contact with literally hundreds of people. I spend about half my time catching up on things in my office, and the other half attending meetings, working on my various projects, running groups for the mentally ill, etc., etc. This job is really perfect for me at this point in my life.”

That point in her life was after her divorce from her first husband and a very serious bout with depression.

In November 1980 she wrote, “I’m taking weekly classes in yoga, ballet, and playing squash every Tuesday night. I also just got a pair of roller skates. I’m going to hit the big 3-0 next month, and I plan to go down fighting. … I’m enjoying my independence – enjoying my life – more than I ever have.”

Part of her enjoyment of life was due to the man who would become her second husband. He wrote in a beautiful letter, after Bev’s death, “Bevie was so vibrant when I first met her – she was doing two jobs at once, writing a mental health handbook for kids. It’s part of why I fell in love with her. … She laughed at my jokes, even the bad ones, and I fell in love with her and she with me. She loved her job at the mental health association and she loved that special little being Pudgie. For a time we shared a great happiness and a number of adventures together.”

The handbook he referred to was entitled “Mental Health Association Youth Award Handbook,” and was developed to help young people learn and understand more about mental health. On the title page it said Beverly S. Hopson, originator and author. She developed and wrote this project in which children and adolescents would go through a series of guided experiences to earn a commendation from the Mayor of Los Angeles. The purpose of the exercises was to develop self esteem and to increase skills in interacting with others. The project was used in Los Angeles public and private schools, Scout troops, and other youth groups.

He wrote in a letter to me in 2001: “Please know that we had several very happy, loving years together and she did experience real joy—even if it was short-lived. If you asked her, I think Bev would look at that mental health handbook she made for kids and say, ‘That was why I was put on earth—to help young kids understand the importance of good mental health.’ I have absolutely no doubt that she made a difference while she was here. She helped many, many people.”

Like the special ed teachers I came to know when I was teaching, social workers who do what Bev did can be motivated only by unselfish love of humanity. There is little money or prestige in it; they don’t even have the satisfaction of seeing an exceptional student or client achieve a measure of success by any of the world’s usual standards. Taxpayers’ money funds this work, and everything has to be documented down to the last dotted i. Entire forests fall to provide the paper. There were quarterly reports to write and Individual Program Plans for each client to be developed, incident reports and court reports. Bev carried a portable typewriter everywhere she went, doing her paperwork whenever she had a spare moment. Making lonely, forgotten people smile at a Halloween party or helping someone find a bit of independence in a group home – these were the little accomplishments that sustained her, and it took much hard work and devotion to bring them about.

In May 1982 Bev was awarded her master’s degree at Cal State Northridge. The outdoor ceremony was pleasant in the warm California sun, and I was so glad I was there to see Bev receive the degree she had worked so long and hard for. She wore the traditional academic regalia, the black cap and gown, and because she was receiving her master’s degree, the light blue lined hood of the College of Education.

Early in 1982 Bev was hired by the North Los Angeles County Regional Center as a resource developer and community organizer. She would design and develop programs for developmentally disabled persons, among numerous other responsibilities. She said she was excited to get back into the mental health field again.

In May 1983 our dad died, and in September 1983 Bev married for the second time, a lovely wedding in the backyard of their home in Santa Monica.

In 1984 she wrote that she had started a new job with the Los Angeles Mental Health Association, but in a new location, the Harbor Regional Center in Torrance, and a new position. She would be a counselor/social worker with a caseload of seventy developmentally disabled people and their families. She would do home visits, or visit them at school or in their work training programs and write reports on their progress and set goals and make plans for their next steps. She wrote that it was just fascinating work and she loved it.

Her second husband observed first-hand how hard she worked and how dedicated she was to her job. He paid this tribute to her in a letter after her death: “All of you back there didn’t really get a chance to see how hard and effectively she worked on behalf of those with mental illness and developmental disabilities. While having to constantly fight increasingly harsh governmental cutbacks and red tape, she made her clients’ lives much, much better. She got them funding, found classes or apartments for them, became their friend as well as their counselor. She made a real difference in the many, many lives she touched. She truly did.”

Bev’s best friend Helen, matron of honor at her second wedding, wrote to me, “Bev, to me, was a wonderfully sensitive and gentle spirit. There was a fragility to her that made me want to help her and even take care of her. In the course of our friendship, there were times when she reached out for my help and I think I was able to bring a measure of comfort and support to her.”

In September 1990 Bev wrote in a letter to Mom, “I don’t think I told you that we went to Italy, France and Monaco just a few weeks after we visited you. We were having trouble getting reservations to Kenya on such short notice, so we decided on Europe instead. As you know, it had been 20 years since I’d been there. We flew into Rome, rented a car and drove up the coast of Italy, then to Nice, France and Monte Carlo, Monaco. We had a wonderful time – it was so good to get away and really relax.”

At last, after twenty years, she had finally returned to Europe as she had always wanted to do. And that, I’m sorry to say, is the last of the happy memories of Bev’s life. A few months later her marriage ended, and six years later, her life.

My sister Pat talked to Guy, a social worker in Los Angeles who had probably been Bev’s closest friend there, and captured his lilting Haitian accent when she wrote to me what he said to her. “Ah, Pat, but don’t you know, our Bev didn’t belong in this world. She was never really happy here, never comfortable, not with herself or with other people. She tried! Oh, how hard she tried to be happy! She read and studied her heart out, trying to learn how to find happiness. But, for her, happiness was not reachable in this world. It’s too harsh a place for someone as delicate as Beverly. As someone privileged to know her well and love her very much, I am so very thrilled that she doesn’t have to struggle anymore, that she was finally able to find release from the terrible pain she was in.”

Fly, fly little wing

Fly beyond imagining

The softest cloud, the whitest dove

Upon the wind of heaven’s love

Past the planets and the stars

Leave this lonely world of ours

Escape the sorrow and the pain

And fly again.

(Jean-Jacques Goldman and Phil Galdston)