Elizabeth Anne Ament Pudloski

Elizabeth Anne Ament Pudloski passed away on August 16th in the loving presence of her husband, Steve, and their two sons, Steve and Rob, at Agrace Hospice. Beth or Beth Anne, as she is called by her family and earliest friends, lived a full and generous life of 82 years. Beth is survived by her husband of 61 years, Stephen T. Pudloski, sons Stephen E. Pudloski of Austin, Texas and Robert A. Pudloski of Madison, WI and granddaughter, Chloe Pudloski Shero and her husband, Julien Décamps of Grenoble, France. She was proceeded in death by her dad and mom, Edwin and Loise Ament, and her brothers Darrell and Ed Ament.

Beth lived a mature spiritual life: anchored in Lutheranism, being raised in a religious family; gained an adult understanding of Christianity at Wittenburg; instructed in the beliefs of Catholicism before marriage; and saved by the freedom to search and commit to a personal belief within the theology and community of Unitarian Universalism. She believed in a God that is loving and forgiving; a God in All and All in God; she believed that a direct experience of God is possible through prayer, meditation, and attention; and that there are many paths to God. Beth’s growth was sustained through reading, her work as a teacher, and her long-time participation in UU small group ministry.

Many people have described Beth as the most kind and thoughtful person they know. She was also steadfast in meeting her family responsibilities, even as she sought to accomplish her own goals and aspirations. She was smart, a planner, a feminist, and a strong woman who finished things she started. Her belief in the spark of divinity in each living being informed her thoughts, decisions, and daily actions throughout her life.

Beth’s life began on January 27, 1943 in Wilmerding, Pennsylvania, a small industrial town in the Turtle Creek Valley next to Pittsburgh. At that time the coal powered air pollution in Pittsburgh was unhealthy, so the Ament family moved to West Virginia and then Kent, Ohio for clean air, good schools, educational opportunity at Kent State, and good jobs in nearby industrial Akron.

In the late 1940’s, Beth’s mom’s brother, Robert Hite, lived with them to recover from his service in WWII. While living with the Aments, his contribution was to care for the children when they got home from school until mom and dad got home from work. Uncle Bob had stayed in France for several years at the end of the war working in Paris. Bob had studied art at Pitt before the war and he often talked of Paris, the Louvre, the beauty of the French language. He also taught the kids to draw and speak a little French.

Uncle Bob’s drawing and French lessons and his books from the Louvre influenced Beth’s interests, skills, education and profession. Her BA from Kent State University was in Art and Art History with a minor in French. She taught French at a boys Catholic High School in Chicago during their first year of marriage and Steve’s last year in college. Beth and Steve moved from Chicago to Milwaukee where their two sons were born, and then to Pittsburgh where Steve attended graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh. In Pittsburgh they lived in a development near the Westinghouse Nuclear Center and several of their neighbors were French families. The dads were engineers working at Westinghouse, training to design, build, commission, and operate Westinghouse Nuclear Power plants in France, Belgium, and Africa. Their wives and Beth would meet often for French lessons one day and English another. The children played together. Several of these relationships lasted a lifetime, traveling together and exchanging children.

When Steve completed his grad work and got a job in a Chicago suburb, Beth earned an MAT (Master of Art in Teaching) in elementary education at National College of Education in 1977. Beth began teaching grade school and eventually landed a permanent position teaching art in a grade school with children from a wide variety of cultures. She loved teaching every child in the school, seeing them try new things, connecting them with art from their own cultures, growing in confidence. She taught for 12 years and enjoyed it all.

While attending her first National Art Education Association she became excited about the possibility of applying her mid-career knowledge and skill to improve the teaching of art in elementary school through curriculum development and teacher training. And when our sons were near the end of their college programs, Beth applied for and was awarded a Teaching Assistantship in the PhD program at the College of Art and Art Education at The Ohio State University in Fall 1990. Beth was full time at OSU for three semesters but when Robert became ill with Hodgkin’s disease, she came home to care for him during his long treatments and recovery. She worked on developing her dissertation topic at home and when Rob went back to UWM to complete his degree, Beth returned to OSU to complete her course work, take her comprehensive exam and get her dissertation topic approved. Beth was awarded a Getty Fellowship to write her dissertation. In spring 1995 Beth received her PhD. Her dissertation: Implications of Feminist Aesthetics for Art Education.

Initially, Beth joined UW-Madison as an Adjunct, teaching undergraduate art education classes and running the Saturday school, where advanced art education students get guided practice conducted art classes for community children. She then took a tenure track position at UW-Green Bay, teaching undergraduate art education and art history classes. Beth completed her teaching career at Eastern Michigan University and loved teaching graduate classes in art education and running the Saturday school at Eastern.

Beth retired in 2010, did some consulting, but mostly focused on some things she had set aside during her work life, namely improving her French and traveling. Most trips were with Steve, but several were for classes focused on French or art. There were trips to England, Scotland, four trips to France, a train adventure to Belgium, Holland, Austria, Italy, and the south of France, and two to Italy. There were also trips to the west coast to see Ament family members and to care for her younger brother who had health problems. She took French courses in Madison and met weekly with a friend to keep their French alive.

Beth’s last trip to France in March 2020 was to Aix-en-Provence for an advance French Class and Steve was to take one for beginners. The trip was cut short by the Covid lockdown that happened on the first weekend of the trip. Even so, the weekend was one of joy and love because Chloe came down to Aix from Grenoble for a visit. It was a best last trip.

The next 5 years were not as kind to Beth as the earlier years had been. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2020. After several lumpectomies she had a mastectomy and reconstruction in the fall of 2020 and chemotherapy in the winter 2020-21. Over the next two years she experienced increases in anxiety and fear. During that time there were three deaths of people very close to her, both her brothers and our daughter-in-law. She began to have memory problems and over time they became worse. She took a bad fall in late December 2023 and had a few less serious falls more recently. In the afternoon of July 18, Beth asked to go to Urgent Care. From Urgent Care to the ER where they found three fractured ribs, to hospital for observation, to rehab and two weeks later to hospice diagnosed with a Kennedy Ulcer on her tailbone. Beth passed away on August 16, one month after the ER visit.

Beth was a spiritually attuned woman to the end. Even in her pain and loss she continued to believe in a loving and forgiving God, but not long ago added to her belief statement the Theological Paradox: “A God that provides you all and spares you nothing.”

There will be a celebration of Elizabeth Anne Ament Pudloski’s life on October 24 at 6:30 pm in the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Landmark Auditorium, 900 University Bay Dr. Madison, WI. All are welcome. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a small donation to “Doctors without Borders”.