Obituary
Alice Aldrin Newell
Orlando, Florida
September 7, 1937 – January 1, 2022
Alice grew up in Hammond, a steel mill town in Indiana, and a suburb of Chicago. She grew up playing the organ and singing in the choir of a mission church, Christ Lutheran Church, of which her parents were founding members. She graduated from Morton High School and attended the Indiana University in Bloomington, where she majored in Spanish. She returned to her hometown and taught Spanish at Hammond High, where she met her husband, Lawrence Milton Newell. They moved to Sun Prairie, Wisconsin from the late 1960s to the late 1970s. In Wisconsin she taught Spanish, attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where she earned her master’s degree in Education, and raised her two children in an idyllic rural setting in Sherwood Forest.
She moved with her family to Tampa, Florida in 1979 where she taught Spanish at the Academy of the Holy Names High School for over 30 years. She earned a second master’s degree in Humanities from the University of South Florida in the late 1980s and developed a love for architecture. She even taught Humanities at the Academy for a few years.
She loved language, cultures, and cultural arts. She enjoyed studying, understanding, and teaching the Spanish language, Hispanic cultures and artifacts, French language, classical music, opera, art (especially the Pre-Raphaelite’s), and architecture. She always loved to travel, particularly to Mexico and European countries, and traveled often in her later years, to immerse and continue to educate herself in all of her favorite interests.
She was raised in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and was a long-standing member of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Tampa, FL. However, she always loved traditional Episcopal choir music and never missed a televised royal wedding so she could dissect the musical choices. She was received into the Episcopal Church and was a member of Holy Innocents’ in Valrico, FL for many years where she sung in the choir and made many friends. She moved to the Orlando in 2018 to live close to her daughter. She attended St. Michael’s church and actively ministered in The Gathering and St. Michael’s adult choir.
She also loved her two tri-color phalene Papillon dogs. Her first pup, Solo, passed away two years ago when he was 8 years old, which broke her heart. Rather than live broken-hearted, she adopted her second pup, Xochi (So-chee). These pups were her best friends for the last 10 years, and she was often seen with them walking or eating at local restaurants. Xochi is well loved by the rest of the family and will be well cared for.
Her quick wit and her recall of names of characters in books she had read long ago was amazing.
Her love for her dogs was enduring.
Rest now my friend,
Janet