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PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 2:52 pm 
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Fanny Luke dead, educator and World War II veteran was 91

Updated November 1, 2014 8:30 PM
By TED PHILLIPS ted.phillips@newsday.com

Fanny Luke, an educator and World War II veteran who went to college on the GI Bill, died in her Manhattan home on Oct. 16 after a lengthy illness. She was 91.

Her sisters recalled a determined, intelligent and generous woman who planted dahlias and roses at her second home in Locust Valley and attended St. John's of Lattingtown Episcopal Church there.

The daughter of a banker, Fanny Curtis grew up in Boston the second oldest of five sisters. She graduated from the private all-girls Westover School in Middlebury, Connecticut, in 1941.

As World War II raged, she enlisted in the Navy WAVES -- Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service. Serving in San Diego, California, as an aviation machinist's mate, she worked on combat aircraft before they were shipped to the Pacific.

"She was proud of it," said her sister, Laura Cutler of Manchester, Massachusetts. Cutler said her sister signed up out of patriotism but that it was also her way.

"She's very determined in things that she likes -- that's the way she was about the Navy," Cutler said.

Her father didn't think college was necessary for his daughters, but the GI Bill made it possible for her to attend Radcliffe College after the war, said another sister, Catherine Allard, of Manchester, New York.

After graduating in 1951, she moved to Manhattan and taught children at the Episcopal School. She met her husband, David Luke III, through friends, Cutler said, and they married in 1955.

"She met him and the next thing I knew she was engaged," Cutler recalled. "They were a perfect combination."

David Luke had fought as a pilot in the South Pacific, flying the kinds of planes that she had serviced. He worked in his family business, the Westvaco Corp. paper company, and eventually became chief executive.

Fanny Luke taught for 12 years and stayed involved in education as a board member of Westover School and the City Gardens Club, a nonprofit dedicated to instilling an appreciation for nature in urban children.
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In their spare time, the couple was serious about sailing, but it wasn't all work.

"The minute we'd go to port, they'd want an ice cream cone," Cutler said.

The funeral was held on Oct. 24 in Locust Valley at St. John's of Lattingtown. Survivors include her husband, David, and sisters Cutler, Allard and Polly Burrus, of Washington, D.C.

Posted:
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/obit ... -1.9574356


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