Elizabeth Gedney Ewan
2008
Elizabeth Gedney Ewan, 85, a homemaker who volunteered for 25 years at Sibley Memorial Hospital and contributed countless hours to other charitable endeavors, died of congestive heart failure Jan. 6 at her home in Chevy Chase.
Despite a lifelong battle with emphysema, Mrs. Ewan consistently found the energy to volunteer. During World War II and into the 1950s, she volunteered as an American Red Cross nurse's aide at the old Doctors Hospital in the District. She also served in the early 1950s with the Junior League of Washington's Exceptional Children Clinic at George Washington University Hospital and continued with the league through the 1960s.
Beginning in 1980, she spent more than 25 years volunteering at Sibley Memorial Hospital. Well into her 80s, she pushed a gift cart throughout the hospital, selling items to patients and nurses. When Beanie Babies were popular, she had an inside track and would tell the nurses when to expect them, her daughter said.
Mrs. Ewan also used her fundraising skills and other talents at the Salvation Army in the 1980s and '90s, and she helped out at the Thrift Shop at All Saints Church in Chevy Chase from 1970 until shortly before her death.
She was born in Fredericksburg and was a direct descendant of Col. John Tayloe III, who built the Octagon House in Washington as his city home. The site now houses the Octagon Museum, the museum of the American Architectural Foundation, the oldest architectural museum in the country.
Mrs. Ewan grew up in the District and graduated from  Wilson High School, where she was captain of the softball team. She was also an editor of her high school newspaper and wrote the social column.
She was a member of the Junior League of Washington and a founding member of St. Mary's Guild of All Saints Episcopal Church. She belonged to the Columbia Country Club from the 1960s to '80s.
Her husband of 61 years, John Robert Radcliffe Ewan, a doctor in Washington, died in 2002.
Survivors include three children, Nancy Robey Miller and Robert Radcliffe Ewan, both of New York, and Bruce Tayloe Ewan of Silver Spring.
-- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb