Anne Lucy Dinger

Anne (Lucy) Dinger, who lived at Manor Drive, in Woodstock, died Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at Kingston Hospital. She was 79 and had lung cancer, diagnosed in 2008. Anne Griffith was born in New York City and raised on Long Island and in North Carolina. She trained for a career as a concert pianist but instead entered the work force in the 1950s as a secretary for several architectural firms in New York City. She also attended the Black Mountain artist colony at that time, getting to know such luminaries as John Cage, Merce Cunningham and Arthur Penn, among others. She met her husband, Naoum Dinger, a cellist with the New York Philharmonic orchestra, while studying the cello in NYC in the mid-1950s. She and her husband raised their only child, Gregory, in the city, but frequently took vacations in the Catskills and she valued the cultural offerings of the area. Anne had her son attend Peter Pan Camp (now the Woodstock Day School) for several years in the mid-1960s and then, in 1968, she moved the family to the town of Woodstock. Anne had begun her son's musical training in the city with Dalcroze Eurythmics, piano lessons, and guitar lessons. Piano lessons continued in Woodstock (with her teaching him briefly between other teachers) as well as classical guitar lessons when he showed an interest in that aspect of the guitar. She was supportive of his desire to attend Ulster Academy, an alternative high school in the area in the 1970s (and was active in that school's functions). Anne lived in Woodstock most of her life with the exception of a few years in the 1990s when she lived in Chichester. She divorced her husband in 1976, and lived in four different locations in Woodstock over the next 15 years. Her husband died in 1983; though divorced from him, she was extremely helpful in caring for him while her son was in college in the late 1970s. She moved to Colonial Beach, Virginia in the mid-1990s, seeking a warmer climate. She stayed there for about a dozen years, enduring some health setbacks, before returning to Woodstock in 2007. She had a considerable hand in designing the cottage/studio she and her son built for her next door to his house (by Amish builders -- profiled in the Woodstock Times 10/16/2006). Perhaps her two main interests were classical music (with some appreciation for The Beatles, NRBQ, Randy Newman and Fleetwood Mac) and animals (a dog lover until Simba passed on, and then a cat person for many generations of feline friends). For many years she taught piano in Woodstock, and in Virginia she worked at Wendy's Felines, an animal rescue center. Her favorite composers were Bach, Scarlatti, and Chopin, with considerable appreciation of such "moderns" as Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, and even Gyorgy Ligeti. She supported local musicians by attending concerts by The Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, Ars Choralis, Saugerties Pro Musica, and the Trail Mix Concerts, as well as the occasional Maverick concerts (though string quartets were never her thing) and was duly supportive of her son's career as a classical guitarist and chamber musician (including a difficult trip up from Virginia in 2004 to hear him perform a concerto). She was also an avid reader, particularly delighting in Simenon novels, musical biographies and The New Yorker. Surviving Anne are her son Gregory, of Woodstock; a half-sister Joan Griffith, of Sarasota, Florida; two cousins, Audrey Gassie of Richmond, Virginia and Ann Roper of Vero Beach, Florida; and Polly, her cat. A private memorial service for Anne will be conducted at a later date in her home. Cremation was in Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Ulster County S. P. C. A., 20 Wiedy Rd., Kingston, N.Y. 12401.