Deborah Anne Garretson '69

February 2, 1945 - March 2, 2025

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With sadness, we report the passing of Deborah Anne Garretson '69.

Deborah Anne Garretson died quietly on March 2, 2025, at the Jack Byrne Center for Palliative & Hospice Care of complications of stage 4 lung cancer. She had just celebrated her 80th birthday. She was held lovingly by friends and family members as she drew her last breaths. A long-term resident of the Upper Valley of New Hampshire, she was a professor of Russian at Dartmouth College from 1976 until her retirement in 2019. Debby, as she preferred to be called, led a peripatetic life of accomplishment and adventure. She was born in 1945, in Syracuse, NY the daughter of Albert Henry Garretson and Agnes P. Garretson. When she was two years of age the family, including brothers David, Peter, and eldest brother Ronald Maddox, moved to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. There her father became an advisor to the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry and to Emperor Haile Selassie. The ten years she lived in Ethiopia imprinted on her a love of travel and adventure and her passionate interest in culture and language.

She began her education in Ethiopia at the Sandford school whose student body was comprised of children from all over the globe. When her family returned to the United States in 1957 she attended several schools, and graduated high school from the Friends Seminary, a Quaker day school on E. 16th Street. She spent part of her junior year studying in Brussels and became fluent in the French language which she had begun studying while in Ethiopia. Debby briefly attended Bryn Mawr College and spent a year at Bedford College, a constituent college of the University of London, before completing her undergraduate education at the Royal Victoria College at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, graduating with an honors degree in French. While at McGill, she began studying Russian. She later remarked, "It was the cold war era, we were young and optimistic and wanted to find a way to forge peace in the world. Understanding the Russian language and culture felt like a way I could contribute to this."

Following her undergraduate education, Professor Garretson accepted a Swiss fellowship and studied Russian and then translation at the universities of Lausanne and Geneva. Always an adventurous wanderer, she traveled, often on her own, throughout Europe and Eastern Europe. In 1967 she returned to graduate school at New York University where she received her doctorate in Russian in 1975. During graduate school she travelled on a prestigious IREX fellowship (International Research & Exchanges Board) which allowed her to study at Moscow University and travel to many parts of Russia and Europe in 1971 and1972.

Dr. Garretson life spanned many decades of sociological importance, especially for women. In 1982 she was among the first wave of women professors to receive full tenure at Dartmouth College.

Her publications and areas of expertise were in Russian linguistics, consecutive and simultaneous interpretation, and cross-cultural issues. She was quite interested in, and wrote about, the psychological aspects of interpreting. Debby firmly believed that language scholarship and teaching should be immersed in cultural experience, and thus for many years accompanied groups of Ivy League students to Leningrad (later St. Petersburgh) for their study abroad program.

In addition to her teaching and research, Debby began working as an independent contractor, interpreting for the State Department's Russian language division in 1985, just as the relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was beginning to thaw. She worked in Geneva as an interpreter for the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaties (START I and START II). She considered this some of her most important life work. She served as interpreter at the summit in Malta, for Admiral Crowe and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and for Barbara Bush and Raisa Gorbachev during the latter's visit to the US in 1990. In 2009 and 2010, during the Obama administration, she served as interpreter for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New Start) which was intended to further reduce U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arms. Debby described her participation in this crucial treaty as arduous and rewarding. The US formally suspended this important treaty in 2019.

In the early 2000's, Debby's natural curiosity, wisdom, and care for all whom she encountered found a home in her spiritual practice of insight meditation, and serious study of Buddhism. Her practice expanded quickly as she attended numerous retreats at centers in the U.S. and abroad, including the Insight Meditation Society, the Forest Refuge, and the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in Barre, Massachusetts. In later life she returned to Africa, sitting meditation retreats at several centers in the Republic of South Africa. The depth of her practice inspired many, and she was considered an integral member of several Buddhist communities, including the Valley Insight Center in Lebanon, NH. This later community lovingly provided spiritual respite and care during her final illness. She is thought by many who love her to embody the spirit of metta (loving kindness), and mudita (compassion). After retiring from Dartmouth College, and in keeping with her love of scholarship and her desire to understand the earliest strata of Buddhist literature, Debby undertook a serious study of Pali, the ancient language in which the Buddhist canon is transcribed.

Debby formed and maintained many deep friendships hailing from every aspect and phase of her life. She was a loving and attentive friend, colleague, professor, and family member. Her joyous laugh and infectious goodwill will be missed by all.

She is survived by her brother Peter (Rufina) Garretson, sister-in-law Betty Maddox of VA; cousins, Susan Garretson Daniel, Martha Garretson Wright, Nancy Garretson, Amy Fraher, Patricia Harris, Jay Harris, Lynne Harris and nieces and nephews: David Maddox, Karen Maddox Manukas, Michael Maddox, Tamara Maddox Otten and Deborah Anne Wheeler.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies to support its mission of cultivating wisdom, deepening practice, and building community. Contributions can be made online at www.buddhistinquiry.org/donate/ or mailed to 149 Lockwood Road, Barre, MA 01005.