IT IS WITH DEEP REGRET we note the passing of Ida Elizabeth Kopp Childs of Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts, at age 91.

She was the mother of Cynthia Neely of Georgetown and Barbara Sampson of Lincoln, Massachusetts.

She was preceded by her husband Theodore.

Ida was a Founding Member of Historic Georgetown, Inc., in 1970 and was instrumental in developing our Christmas at Hamill House receptions in 1971 (which have been held every December since).

Our first gifts to Hamill House reception patrons were fresh oranges spiked with cloves and tied with blue ribbon; each orange had about 60 spikes of clove -- there were 50 oranges. The patrons were impressed -- Ida and Cindy had sore thumbs for weeks.

The Childs' home in Yarmouth Port served as a place of solace, advice, and strength when this writer was visiting in 1980 and assisting our Board of Directors, via long distance phone, in the final negotiations for the Leavenworth Mountain lawsuit. The settlement of that prevented some 60 condominiums from being developed right about Town.

A few of us cannot ever look at that mountain without thinking of that little Cape Cod on Strawberry Lane.

She meant a great deal to the founding of this organization, and we mourn her passing. --RJN