Claremont Courier
03 May 2000
Winifred Hopkins
Librarian, Pilgrim
Winifred Hawes Hopkins, a resident of Pilgrim Place for more than 21 years, died April 6, 2000 at the Health Services Center there at the age of 98.
The then Winifred Hawes was born on February 5, 1902 in Riverside, California, the daughter of a music merchant. She was educated in Riverside schools and attended the Riverside Library School where she received her early training in librarianship. She attended and graduated from the University of Redlands with a bachelor’s degree in 1929 and took a position as an assistant librarian at Fullerton Junior College the same year. She would later take a sabbatical year to study at the School of Library Science at the University of California at Berkeley where she received a bachelor’s degree in library science in 1936.
Miss Hawes’s career as a librarian was suspended for a time when she married C. Howard Hopkins, a classmate form the University of Redlands, in 1941. During their 59 years together the Hopkins lived in Stockton, California, Bangor, Maine, New Haven, Connecticut, DeLand, Florida, and Princeton, New Jersey. They were associated, Mrs. Hopkins wrote “with Congregationalists, Southern Baptists, American Baptists, United Church of Christ, and found it an exhilarating ecumenical experience.”
Mrs. Hopkins continued her professional work as a librarian during those years at the College of the Pacific in Stockton, Bangor Seminary, Stetson University and, the Astrophysics Library at Princeton University.
While her husband was working on a biography of John R. Mott, the Hopkins’ made trips to European countries, including Israel in 1971. During those trips, she reported that they made use of many libraries, including the British Museum, Cambridge University, Bodleian Library at Oxford, the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Uppsala University, and the National Library of Australia during a trip through the Pacific basin in 1972 that included Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, and Tahiti.
At home, Mrs. Hopkins was an avid hiker interested in identifying birds, trees, and flowers. A piano player in her early years, she enjoyed recorded and concert music. She noted that later in life she found the study of archaeology in relation to the understanding of Bible history exciting.
Mrs. Hopkins is survived by her husband Howard Hopkins of the Pilgrim Place Health Services Center, by her son and daughter-in-law: Peter and Suzy Hopkins of Orange; by her daughter, Anne Corbin of Mercerville. New Jersey; by a brother, Harold Hawes of Orinda, and by her grandchildren, Brendon, Colin, Devon, and Ariana Hopkins of Orange.
A memorial service will be held on Thursday, May 4, 2000 at 10:30 a.m. in the Biane Room of the Health Services Center at Pilgrim Place.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Pilgrim Place Book of Remembrance Memorial Fund benefiting health endowment for Pilgrim Place residents.