with the pioneering educational work of Dr. Maria Montessori. In 1939, Maria Montessori was persona non grata with the fascist government of Mussolini for refusing to do its bidding. The Theosophical Society extended an invitation to her to come to Adyar, India. She accepted it and lived there from 1939 to 1948, During those years, many Montessori schools were founded in India. Hilda, Ernest and Maria Montessori were vital forces in their founding. It is reasonable to assume that, being in the same vicinity and working toward the same goals for some seven years, there must have been considerable interaction among the three. Ernest and Hilda made their home in Houston, Texas in the late 1950s where they became active in the Unitarian Fellowship of Houston in 1959. "Hilda focused on developing a Fellowship library and began talking about establishing a Montessori school – Ernest was frequently asked to deliver inspirational talks." They successfully opened the Montessori school in the Fall of 1962 with a student body of children of mostly Unitarian parents. Hilda and Ernest ordered all the Montessori materials and Maria Montessori's writings from England and India – none existed in the US in 1962. Ernest Wood was president of the school's first Board of Trustees. The couple took up residence in a small cottage adjacent to the Fellowship property on Wirt Road in the Spring Branch district of Houston. They nurtured the school until Ernest's death in 1965 and Hilda's in 1968. The Board of Trustees decided to name School of the Woods after its founders. Wood died on 17 September 1965, days after finishing his translation of Shankara's Viveka Chudamani, which was posthumously published and entitled The pinnacle of Indian thought. References Further reading Partial List of Works The Garuda Purana (Saroddhara). The Sacred Books of the Hindus, Vol. 9. Indian Press 1911. The Seven Rays. 1925. The Intuition of the Will. The Theosophical Press 1927. An Englishman Defends Mother India. A Complete Constructive Reply to "Mother India", Ganesh & Co. 1929, revised 1930. The Occult Training of the Hindus, 1931 (republished in 1976 under the title Seven Schools of Yoga by the Theosophical Publishing House). The Song of Praise to the Dancing Shiva. Ganesh & Co. 1931. Mind and Memory Training. Theosophical Publishing House 1936. Is this Theosophy...? (Autobiography) Rider & Co. 1936. Practical Yoga, Ancient and Modern, with an Introduction by Paul Brunton. E.P.