Rhoda Hemmings (June 1914 - January 2003)
Born at Mill Farm, Milton, Rhoda spent her academic life and teaching career in London, Batley, Cambridge and Burton Girls' High School (plus several years part-time at Repton School).Her interests in the church and village were legion. They included the Parish Magazine (she was treasurer at one time, and continued as a distributor into her old age), Sunday School teacher at Milton and Repton, member of PCC, Bible Study Group leader and Meals on Wheels distributor.
When she returned as a young woman of thirty-two to live in Repton, she took up tower bell ringing and continued for twenty-eight years, after which she directed the handbell ringers for another twenty-two years. A kneeler in church (which she herself stitched), depicting two handbells, is a reminder of her fifty years of bell-ringing for St Wystan's.
Rhoda was a prominent worker in the archaeological digs in the seventies and eighties, classifying and documenting bones as they were unearthed, and continuing after the digs were finished. She contributed to the final scientific report. During the digs she organised the provision of refreshments for the workers and visitors. She was particularly good at recruiting helpers.
Her interests extended to Calke Abbey, where she was a garden steward; and perhaps most of all to the Lake District, where she loved to walk in the company of her friends. Her other 'passions', as she put it, were badgers and bees, natural history and art, needle work and, not least, gardening. This last she shared with her companion of many years, Betty Haywood. Their garden was always a joy to see.
She was well loved and respected by many from both within and beyond the village of Repton, and the attendance at her memorial service was a worthy acknowledgement of the life of this remarkable woman, whose convictions, qualities and kindness endeared her to many friends in and beyond this parish.