Obituary of Dr. C. Ninetta Hession

Dr. C. Ninetta Hession, a resident in Glen Arden, Goshen, NY, died on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 in the Glen Arden Health Care Center at the age of 90. The daughter of Antonio and Anna di Benedetto, she was born October 1, 1917 in White Plains, NY. She was the beloved wife of Martin F. Hession, also of Glen Arden, and is also survived by her niece, Linda Morgese and her grandniece, Lyrica Crookshank and husband Josh, the parents of her great grandnephew, Kelby; cousins in White Plains, Chicago, Italy and Ireland and friends everywhere will be saddened by the news of her demise. Ninetta graduated from White Plains High School in 1935 and received her baccalaureate degree from Barnard College in 1939. In World War II, she served as a Service Club Director for the Army and served in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean and in Europe. Following the war she worked with the Catholic Chaplain at Columbia University and then began her teaching career at the Croton Falls School in North Salem, NY. She loved children and teaching. She helped care for a family of children who had lost their mother and who still remember her fondly. She spent a year teaching children in Northern Ireland where she was an Exchange-Teacher in the town of Enniskillen and was reputedly very well known in County Fermanagh. Following her return home she and Martin were married in the Church of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, White Plains, NY, in 1961, and Ninetta shortly after joined her husband in the Croton-Harmon Schools, Croton-on-Hudson, NY. They moved to Ossining, NY and lived there until 1996, when they came to Glen Arden. Together they spent a summer in Spain and a summer at Lourdes in France and spent some time with family in Italy and Ireland. Ninetta became a specialist in Reading, received a Doctoral Degree from Columbia University and taught a number of graduate courses. She acted in or directed the annual Croton Faculty shows and was an active member of Delta Kappa Gamma, the international Honors Society for Women in Education. She was a Lector and a Eucharistic Minister at the Church of St. Augustine in Ossining and a member of the Legion of Mary, which she had joined while in Ireland, activities which she continued after her retirement in 1978 and during her years at the Church of St. Johns in Goshen, NY. She organized a Legion of Mary group at Glen Arden and acted as its chaplain. By and large, Ninettas retirement years were extremely active. Among other things she had a leading role in an off-Broadway play and did the role of one of the sisters in Chekhovs Three Sisters, at Columbia University on Broadway, across the street from Barnards Minor Latham Theater where she learned to love the stage as a student. But above all was her devotion and dedication to the Faith in which she was baptized and in which she was anointed at the hour of her death. Visitation will be Sunday, March 16, 2008 from 3-6 pm at the Donovan Funeral Home, 82 South Church St., Goshen. A Mass of Christian Burial will be Monday, March 17, at 10:00 am at St. John the Evangelist R.C. Church, Murray Ave., Goshen. Interment will follow in Our Lady of Mt. Calvary Cemetery, White Plains, NY. In lieu of flower, donations may be made in Ninettas name to St. John the Evangelist R.C. Church, 71 Murray Avenue, Goshen, NY 10924. Arrangements under the care of the Donovan Funeral Home, Goshen. For directions or to leave the family a personal condolence, please visit donovanfunerals.com