April 7, 1940 - March 7, 2024
With sadness, we report the passing of Elizabeth Gummey Pemberton '57.

Reported by John Schwartz ’57
“Elizabeth Gummey Pemberton - Betsy died March 7, 2024. Despite her distance from the rest of us in Australia, Betsy remained connected while becoming an authoritative figure in classical archaeology.
At Friends, Betsy was chief editor of our 1957 Yearbook, she was active in Dr. Hunter’s Philosophy Club and in choral singing, and was on the girls’ varsity basketball team. After Friends, she got her AB degree from Mount Holyoke College and her MA and PhD from Columbia. She also pursued graduate work at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, where she was introduced to the archaeological excavations at ancient Corinth, to which she devoted much of her career. That her scholarship was matched by her physical strength and agility was demonstrated there by her skillful escape from a museum locked for the night by climbing to the roof and down to an interior courtyard.
Betsy was on the faculty of the University of Maryland for fourteen years, but spent a sabbatical at the same American School she had attended in Athens and met Australian archeologist Ian McPhee, whom she married in 1981 and moved to Australia, although she continued to use her earlier married name professionally. She taught at the University of Melbourne, first in Fine Arts and then in Classics. Her many books and scholarly papers concentrated on ancient Corinth, where she and Ian worked almost every year, prompting her frequently to invite Friends classmates to visit.
Betsy retired from teaching in 2002, but continued her research at the Trendall Centre for Ancient Mediterranean Studies at La Trobe University, a substantial institution near Melbourne, and continued to write highly regarded works with Ian, including an important volume in 2012 on Corinthian pottery. Meanwhile, she obtained a Master of Divinity degree from Trinity College, Melbourne, in 2010 and wrote a short article for the Australian Biblical Review.
Betsy stayed as close to her Friends classmates as she could from Australia. She attended our 50th Reunion and, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit both our countries, engaged in lively email correspondence about disease control measures with the rest of us.
Betsy is survived by her husband, Ian. Her sister, Mary Gummey Morson, Friends 1953, predeceased her in 1985.”
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