right to vote and was a prolific writer of Letters to the Editor throughout her life, sharing her views on various topics. “She was not afraid to take a stand, if she had a stand to take!” Susanna jokes. When her son Richard was born, he suffered a birth injury and as a result had learning difficulties, which would come to define much of Elizabeth’s life work and her ultimate legacy. Through her support for her son’s special needs, she became aware of the needs of handicapped children and their families in Bermuda. When she learned that Richard could be taught to read using the Orton Gillingham multi-sensory method, she decided she would become a reading specialist and enrolled at Columbia University in New York in her late forties. She had earlier completed her undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland by correspondence, when her children were younger. For her M.A. Psychology of Reading Difficulties at Columbia she moved to New York while the children were older. Upon her return home, she began working with local children on reading assessments and remediation in the 1960s, out of her home, before formally launching The Reading Clinic in 1968. For over 20 years, Betty, her brother and her sister would tutor students. Susana recalls an art studio around the back of the house: “There was a little boy who was nervous about the testing, so I took him to the studio to do some art, which I believe was the beginning of my interest in art therapy. My mother was always so encouraging of my artistic leanings.” In 1980, Betty was awarded an MBE for her services to the handicapped in Bermuda and legally changed her name to Elizabeth in preparation for receiving her medal.
In 1991, on land leased by The Bermuda High School, The Reading Clinic moved into its own space and now serves over
80 children a year. In the same year, Elizabeth was awarded The Distinguished Alumni Award from Teacher’s College,
Many Generations: Elizabeth with her great- granddaughter, Scarlett Smale ‘26. Her granddaughter Heather Smale ‘92 is also a BHS alumna.
Bright Future: Elizabeth married British Naval Officer Geoffrey Kitson just before World War II. The couple founded Kitson Insurance and Kitson Real-Estate.
Columbia University for the founding and establishment of The Reading Clinic. The following year, she was made a fellow of the Bermuda College. Embodying the true BHS spirit of service to the community, Elizabeth dedicated her life to helping others. She was Chairman of the nonprofit organisation Committee of Twenty Five for Handicapped Children for five years, a Trustee of Friendship Vale School until the Board was disbanded, and a Trustee of King Edward VII Hospital and BHS. Asked what she thought her mother would say to BHS students of today, Susanna says: “Get your education, but do what you love. Find what it is you love and follow it.” There can be no better example of a BHS leader than Elizabeth Kitson; a woman who achieved remarkable things with quiet grace and fortitude; starting businesses, going back to school for higher education with a young family, following a cause she believed in and forever changing the landscape of her island home and the lives of hundreds of young people. As former Headmistress Rose Gosling said to students in a letter for BHS’s 50th Anniversary: “
..my girls, wherever your opportunity for service lies – take with you that spirit of integrity, courtesy, and of willing and responsible service that your old School has striven to inculcate.” There is no doubt that Elizabeth Kitson epitomised that spirit and Bermuda has been left a better place for it.
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