1925 - 2012Diane Leighton Dame Whitten, exquisite lady and beloved mother, died November 7th, at home with family in New York. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1925, to parents Ralph and Sylvia Dame, Diane and her devoted brother, John, grew up in a loving home. Diane attended elementary and middle school at Hillfield Strathallan College in Hamilton, Ontario, where she was awarded a medal for leadership. She graduated Cum Laude from the preparatory Emma Willard School in Troy, New York, where she was described as having, "A certain soothing charm, a vital grace." Diane graduated from Bryn Mawr College, Class of 1946, and corresponded with a close-knit group of college friends, the Round Robins, for over six decades. She was married to Harvard graduate and author John Whitten for sixty years until his death in 2010. For twenty happy and rewarding years until 1992, Diane was librarian at the Independent Day School in Middlefield, Connecticut. She loved literature, writing, birds and flowers, classical music, opera, and all living creatures. Full of compassion, wit and humor, gentle and beautiful, she was and is loved by all who knew her. Diane is survived by her children, Elisabeth Leighton Whitten, Sarah Diane Whitten-Grigsby, Andrew Jerome Whitten and Annie Hunter Gladden, six grandchildren, her brother John Dame and his wife Mary, their children Ralph, Lesslie and Sarah, and one grand nephew. Friends will be notified of services, to be held in mid-December. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Independent Day School, 115 Laurel Brook Road, P.O. Box 451, Middlefield, CT 06455. She loved to laugh, and we loved to laugh with her.