Phoebe Drews

Phoebe Drews, age 87, died on November 7, 2026. Phoebe was born on October 8, 1939, to Elizabeth and Lyman Babbage in East Aurora, New York. Lyman worked at AT&T in Buffalo, and during the war AT&T moved the family to Hamilton Square, New Jersey, where Lyman worked on “the long lines” that connected Washington D.C. with London. After the war the family returned to East Aurora, where Phoebe shone in elementary and high school. From there to Ohio Wesleyan University (graduated in 1961) and then to Vanderbilt, for graduate work in the Comparative Literature program. One of her first courses was taught by Bob Drews, an assistant professor whose eventual marriage proposal she promptly accepted, and they married in August 1963. She then learned - from scratch - to cook and to bake and enjoyed doing so, especially at Christmastime, but she did not forget her languages, earning her Master’s degree in French in 1966. Shortly thereafter, while Bob was a Fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C., Phoebe taught Latin to girls at the nearby National Cathedral School, and the next year - back in Nashville – to girls at St. Cecelia. She then was a stay-at-home mom until daughter Lizzie and son Rich started school, at which point she returned to the classroom, for seven years at Harpeth Hall, then at Apollo, Overton, University School, and from 1992 until her retirement in 2007 at Montgomery Bell Academy. During summers of her teaching years she often took students to France and Italy. She cared deeply for her students, who appreciated her demanding but vivacious presentation of languages – especially French and Latin - about which they may otherwise have had some doubts. After retirement, although increasingly crippled by rheumatoid arthritis and scoliosis, she annually volunteered in the AARP program at the Green Hills Library, helping elderly and lower-income people prepare their income taxes. She also remained a stalwart in two book groups, the Cercle de Lecture and the Bookgroup 1969 (which she had co-founded), until progressive dementia stripped away much – but not all – of the person who for so long she had been.

Phoebe was preceded in death by her parents and by her four brothers: Harry, Walter, Richard and Daniel Babbage. She is survived by her husband, Bob, daughter Elizabeth (“Lizzie”) Holladay in Gallatin, and son Richard in Nashville.

Thanks to the Susan Underwood clinic, where for many years Phoebe found relief from her back pain; to the staff at Richland Place, where Phoebe and Bob spent their retirement after Phoebe was no longer able to climb stairs; to the Richland Place Health Center, where Phoebe received excellent care for the last five months of her life; and to Alive Hospice, whose team helped so much during the last weeks of Phoebe’s well lived life.