Obituaries : * Winifred H. Scarritt; Classical Music Enthusiast

Winifred Hadley Scarritt, an avid reader, classical music lover and Oxnard resident for 35 years, has died. She was 85.

She was an early member of the Ventura County Symphony Assn. and a charter member of the Port Hueneme-Oxnard chapter, said her son, Edward Lucky Scarritt Jr. of Ventura.

“If she’d really pushed it, she might have ended up being a concert pianist,” her son said. “But unfortunately, in 1955, she started coming down with (multiple sclerosis).”

Despite the worsening condition, Edward Scarritt said, his mother continued to play piano for the first 15 years of her illness. Some of her favorite composers included the heavy hitters of the classical piano repertoire.

“She was crazy about Chopin,” Edward Scarritt said. “And of course, she loved Bach, Beethoven and Handel. But she wasn’t too crazy about Mozart.”

In addition to her love of music, her son said, she was a devoted reader of mystery novels.

A native of Kansas City, Mo., she and her husband moved first to Phoenix for four years from Ohio because doctors recommended she live in a warm, dry climate, her son said.

The couple moved to Oxnard in 1960 to escape the heat of Arizona, and her husband worked as a copy editor and telegraph editor for the Oxnard Press-Courier, Edward Scarritt said.

“She was a very intelligent woman, a fine person, (with) a great sense of humor and a very quick wit,” he said.

Her husband, Edward L. Scarritt, preceded her in death in 1991, as did another son, Charles H. Scarritt, in 1992.

In addition to her son Edward, she is survived by four brothers, one sister and numerous nieces and nephews, all of whom live on the East Coast or in the Midwest.

A memorial service is planned for sometime in May at the First Presbyterian Church of Oxnard. Burial is private. Pierce Brothers Griffin Mortuary is handling the arrangements.