Peggy Cavett-Walden
Peggy Cavett-Walden
14 Nov 1925 - 09 Dec 2013
Clubs & Associations
Obituary
CAVETT-WALDEN, PEGGY
Peggy Cavett Walden passed away Monday December 9, 2013. She was 88 years old, born in Austin Texas November 14, 1925, nine months after Valentine's Day, to Guy Cavett and Gladys Freund Cavett. After graduating from Stephen F Austin High School in 1942 she became one of the few women at that time entering the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, graduating in 1946. Continuing her adventure she moved to New Mexico and made it her lifelong home. She embraced the people, the culture and the arts with a passionate appreciation of unique and beautiful things. An artist as well as an architect she was talented in pottery, silkscreening, Batik and weaving. While in New Mexico she worked with the Girl Scouts of America and prominent architecture firms. New Mexico was where she met the love of her life, Jerrold Walden, a professor at the University of New Mexico law school who shared her appreciation and curiosity as well as a joy for entertaining family and friends. Their time together was cut short by his premature death. She was also preceded in her death by her parents, her sister Betty Cavett DeBehnke and brother Bobby Cavett. She is survived by her nephews Richard DeBehnke, Robert DeBehnke, Kenneth Cavett and niece Nancy Cavett Martin, who want to welcome her friends and family to a remembrance of Peggy's life Friday, January 3, 2014. Peggy was a unique person who gathered an equally unique circle of special friends throughout her life. Her family would like to thank everyone, friends and family, who stood by her through her long illness. It is impossible to recognize them all but her special friend, Jack Denvir, requires a special thank you. Services entrusted to: Daniels Family Funeral Services 1100 Coal Ave SE Albuquerque, NM 87106 505-842-8800[1]
Legacy
- Peggy Cavett Walden and Jerrold Leanky Walden Endowment, University of New Mexico
Remembrances
Peggy Cavett-Walden Endowment Fund
Peggy Cavett Walden was an artist, an architect, a volunteer and a teacher. She was also a philanthropist, whose estate was meant to ensure that future generations have access to art. When Peggy passed away, the Foundation became home to her vision for the future.
Peggy’s mind was always working, creating, planning and retooling. She saw art and potential in everything – from old milk jugs to the people she encountered. She believed that all anyone or anything needed was opportunity. Peggy tried her hand at just about every type of art and design: weaving, fabric painting, tie-dye, batik, paper crafts, origami, ceramics, jewelry, interior design, architecture and exhibit and display. She loved it all and wanted to master everything.
Born in 1925, Peggy graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1953 with a degree in architecture, and she later became a licensed architect in the states of Texas and New Mexico. She considered herself a modernist and her aesthetic was similar to Frank Lloyd Wright’s. She earned her master’s degree in art from the University of New Mexico in 1967, and she later taught art at the University of Albuquerque, as well as at Mercer University and Wesleyan College in Georgia.
She was married to Jerrold Walden, who became a beloved law professor at UNM. Theirs was a loving and tender marriage until Jerrold’s death in 1976. He called her Pegsie and she called him Honey. He supported her every artistic endeavor, cheering her on when she had exhibitions at Santa Fe’s Museum of International Folk Art, the Museum of Albuquerque, and across the country, including North Dakota and Texas.
“She loved children and felt that design and art had a transformational effect, because it had this kind of effect on her”, said one friend.
Some of Peggy’s artwork and belongings are on permanent display at the Foundation in a tribute to her incredible life. “She had total tenacity and a tremendous spirit,” said Geraldine Forbes Isais, dean of UNM’s School of Architecture and Planning, who had become friends with Peggy in the last ten years. “I feel like we owe her this. We owe her a little bit of respect for everything she did for all of us.”[2]
Memorial Panel
Photos
Austin High (Austin, TX) yearbook photo, 1942
undated
Obituary (Albuquerque Journal)
