Radiating warmth. Always willing to serve others. Diligent. Intentional. Bright.
This is how the friends and even acquaintances of Brittany Ames consistently describe her.
The Hillsdale College community lost a devout Catholic, an accounting and politics student, and a loyal friend on the evening of Monday, Aug. 18.
Would-be senior Ames, a Tecumseh, Michigan resident, was killed in a car accident in Monroe, Michigan. Police pronounced her dead near an intersection where, according to the police report, she ran a stop sign and collided with a tow truck. No one else was injured in the accident.
“She was calm and gentle, but also witty,” said senior Ayla Meyer, Ames’s junior-year roommate in Whitley Residence. “She always had a kind word for everyone she met, but she could also be incredibly funny at times. Since she was born on leap day, she would joke that when her mom would say, ‘Don’t act like you’re five,’ she’d say, ‘I am five and a half years old!’”
“She was an absolute sweetheart,” said Jennifer Shadle, her freshman roommate. “She was always focused on God. It wasn’t something we talked about all that often, and I can’t think of a tangible way to explain it, but you just knew.”
A packed funeral mass took place on Saturday, Aug. 30 at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Tecumseh, where Ames attended church and worked for many years. Many Hillsdale College friends, professors, and administrators attended.
“Brittany’s family seems to have quite a support network there, and when you have someone who dies so young, and hasn’t moved away, there are lots of friends and classmates still in the area. Her family was apparently pillars of the church there,” said Linda Moore, public service librarian.
One of her Tecumseh High School classmates, Jennifer Hamilton, said she feels blessed to have been able to call Ames her friend.
“Brittany was an amazing person,” Hamilton said. “I will always remember her bright and caring personality, her need to always put others before herself, and her beautiful smile that never seemed to disappear from her face.”
On Thursday, Aug. 28, about 19 women of Whitley Residence gathered to hold their own memorial for their dear friend and hall mate. A tree was planted in her honor in front of the dorm. Different women shared memories and wore homemade purple flower pins, to honor Ames’s favorite color.
“It was very emotionally intense,” Meyer said.
Then, on Monday, Sept. 1, the entire school body was invited to attend a memorial service in the Dow Leadership Center, rooms A and B. It was packed. Students and faculty crowded in to stand squished in the back. The chamber choir sang, friends read scripture, and Bishop Peter Beckwith presided. President Larry Arnn and Ames’s aunt spoke in testimony to Ames’s spirit.
Elizabeth Phelan, Ames’s aunt, said that Ames loved watching and criticizing bad television, debating her father, going to church, and spending time with her cousins and family. She enjoyed eating at the Outback Steakhouse and Wendy’s, taking walks with her mom in the neighborhood, and interning as an accountant at Tenneco, Inc.
“Brittany was the kindest, sweetest person I have ever met,” Phelan said. “And Brittany loved U of M football. I think the only time she was ever upset was when they lost.”
Tears flowed freely as the college mourned a girl who, as Arnn assured the audience, will not ever be forgotten, so long as Hillsdale continues to stand and honor the greatness of the past.
“Her eyes sparkled with intelligence,” Arnn said. “She was not calling attention to herself except for the good things she does, mostly for others. … She is a sign that we are meant for something more.”
Moore, who organized a collection from library employees in Ames’s honor, said she will miss Ames’s hard work ethic and patience with students. Ames was known to treat even the silliest questions with seriousness.
“She had a quiet competence,” Moore said. “Also, I believe that she never missed a library olympics, a kind of a group competition thing we do every second semester. This year, she would have been one of the seniors planning the event.”
Although you wouldn’t know it because she never acted self-pitying in the least, Ames lived with Turner Syndrome, a disease that affects women’s X chromosomes. Ames underwent many surgeries in her life.
“Brittany Ames had suffered, physically. … In conversation with [the authors whose books we read], she came to love their never ending generosity of spirit, a generosity that can take us away from suffering, sometimes by helping us to understand it better,” said Ames’s teacher, professor of politics Will Morrisey, in an email.
Ames was never the loudest student in class, but her example of love needed no announcement. Judith Schellhammer, house director of Whitley, summed up Ames’s legacy well:
“Her smile is what I remember the most, and her warmth.”
