These comments were delivered by Carroll Wetzel Wilkinson, Jule's daughter-in-law.
Thank you’s to the community
Letters after Jule’s death so touching want to share some quotes:
A college friend of Chris’s:“She was always so welcoming when we came to the farm and I missed seeing her in 2008 and after. A warm smart and gracious lady she was.”
A Cedar Rapids friend: “Your mother was a wonderful person whose quiet intellect was always reliable especially when it came to things that mattered, ie liberal politics.”
Miriam Laster’s daughter Sally in New Jersey: “One of the best things about my mother’s move to Norway is that it brought Jule into our lives. She was an amazing person once one of the rare few it was an absolute unqualified privilege to know.”
Miriam Laster herself: “To say we are shocked and surprised seems hardly applicable to the death of someone 97 years old, but in her case it is almost true. She had such grit and determination; she was an example for us all. (Although perhaps occasionally, we all might have wished for a little less of it.”)
Another Cedar Rapids friend: “If you can believe it I still have recipes which she gave me in Cedar Rapids. On the few occasions when we still have more than two or three couples for a supper party there is a good chance there will be a Jule Wilkinson entrée on the menu. Your mother was a remarkable woman.”
A Faculty colleague who is a composer at WVU and who came to the Brunswick Music Festival at Bowdoin: “We’ll always remember your mother’s lobster, blueberry muffins and cream.!”
From someone here in Norway at the Rehab Living Center: “I’ll miss your mother’s gracious manners.”And from a friend of mine at work who never knew Jule but teaches with Chris: “Hindsight makes the summer gatherings of four generations especially treasured…I admire how long your mother was in her chosen home and how you made the long distance work.”
From Chris’s Aunt Mary, the wife of Jule’s beloved brother Jerry who died sadly in his forties: “Jule was very special to me and I will miss our yearly family newsletters very much. All of my girls are very good cooks and they certainly don’t get it from me! She lives on in them! Marge my youngest went the Culinary Institute of America and one day she saw a book with Jule Wilkinson it. “That’s my aunt!” The teacher got very excited and asked if she was still living and where! I think Marge got a good grade!”
From her niece Margie Aunt Mary’s youngest daughter: “When Tim and I saw Jule in 2002 we heard a lot about Sam and saw many pictures of your family her 90th birthday party and baby Alexis and so I feel I know a little about all of you. I wanted to send a note to let you know how your mother influenced my life. Though I am a poor correspondent and was in touch with Jule irregularly it was in many ways her influence that inspired my culinary pursuits. My dad loved her very much and he also loved good cooking so Jule was a bit of a culinary icon in our house growing up. Many were the culinary experiments that dad would say: “One day you may be like your aunt Jule. She sent me a collection of four cookbooks among my first, and I still have them to this day along with two she edited for Institutions Magazine. I don’t think I would have known about the Culinary Institute if not for her. When I attend ed the CIA in the 80’s I went to some of the chefs she worked with on the Professional Chef textbook (her edition still in use at the time) at her behest to say hello. These men who were feared among students had only the utmost respect and the kindest regard for her. Today I am a cooking teacher of recreational cooking on a freelance basis. I have included a recipe that I wrote last summer for a class I taught in North Carolina where the topic I was given to teach was New England cuisine; how could I not think of the family visit to Maine when asked to come up with the menu and so I included my first experience with Lobster roll.”[ Marge’s recipe is in the collection I’ve assembled for anyone interested.]
An artist friend of ours in Morgantown who came to the farm several times with his wife years ago: “To say adieu is so difficult. The map of life is parallel to watching the shooting stars in the dark Norway summer sky at the Wilkinson farm. Your parents were wonderful people, kind and both with a great sense of humor. It was delightful to have been in their lives.”
And a great friend in Cedar Rapids Charlie Cannon: “Bereavement is hell. Your mother was such a dear caring loyal friend for so many years that I can’t yet accept her death. Her mind was still keen and I can hear her, or almost hear her saying decisively, “Enough; this is it.” “Several years ago (Carroll here: maybe 15) at our house in Norway she slipped me a piece of paper with some biblical passages King James versions of course. She said she’d like the passages read at her funeral service. Needless to say I was taken aback. Jule’s thinking about her last rite was premature to say the least something I did not care to contemplate. The verses are the 23rd psalm and Paul 1 Corinthinas 13,11.
And finally a letter from Jule’s beloved niece Ellen: “I spent so many lovely times in Maine I really regret not having the opportunity to catch up with you one more time and to see the farm and reminisce about Jule. I could even acquire a thirst for bourbon in your company especially around the woodstove in the kitchen. All of it is set in my memory: the feel, the smell, the peace of the vista. I loved digging in the lilies, trimming up the fairy roses, napping in the yellow bedroom, planning our meals and of course, Jule. What a treasure she was for me! She gave me back pieces of my childhood and helped me make sense of some of the mystery and nonsense. She was unfailingly supportive no matter what chaotic swirl I brought with me. I try now to use her techniques on my own kids, free from feeling responsible for their successes or their setbacks. I also remember lobsters, blueberry muffins and books to read at length. I loved her distinctive voice. I loved the way she talked. I am sending you a picture of Jule that I cut from a larger picture of her, Ford, and Grandpa. I just like looking at her face.
And now for my eulogy.
I want to begin with a poem by Richard Wilbur called "Blackberries for Amelia." I read this for the first time recently and thought of Jule and Sam picking blueberries together on the farm when he was little.
Fringing the wood, the stone walls and the lanes,
Old thickets everywhere have come alive,
Their new leaves reaching out in fans of five,
From tangles overarched by this year’s canes.
They have their flowers too, it being June
And here or there in brambled dark and light
Are small, five petalled blooms of chalky white,
As random clustered and as loosely strewn
As the far stars of which we are now told
That ever faster do they blot away
And that a night may come in which some say,
We shall have only blackness to behold.
I have no time for any change to great
But I shall see the August weather spur
Berries to ripen where the flowers were-
Dark berries, savage-sweet and worth the wait-
And there will come the moment to be quick
And save some from the birds, and I shall need
Two pails, old clothes in which to stain and bleed
And a grandchild to talk with while we pick.
There will never be anyone else like Jule and I was so lucky to have her in my life for as long as I did. What I remember first is the Jule I met when I was no more than twenty and I came for a visit to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She was welcoming, vibrant, and steadfast from the beginning. Expressions of love came through food and a work ethic that made us all seems like slackers. That visit, she made what seemed to me a feast for at least twelve friends in honor of Chris and me. This was not without huge effort on her part that was portrayed as normal and natural. Yet all the while I knew that in her spare bedroom (where she kept an office for her freelance editing) she was working on manuscripts of chefs who could not write to save their souls. Chapters would come in the mail over the years and she would disappear for hours to edit and make silk purses out of sow’s ears. She was the secret behind countless food writers who knew how to cook, but were clueless about clear expression and sentence structure. Meanwhile she planned and carried out interesting and nutritious meals for her family and friends over decades no matter what else was going on. The balance that she managed between work and living was natural to her, but it was pioneering for women, and highly influential in my life. She had been doing the balancing act since the 1930’s, and Chris’s father, though he had many good traits, did not help out with domestic realities. Jule did it all. And I must say, one of her many legacies are her sons. Steve was and Chris is, excellent with domestic realities. Raising such sons was a great accomplishment as they like her, were/are ahead of their time.
Carolyn Heilbrun, author of Writing a Woman’s Life, says a lot of penetrating things about women’s lives that are worth thinking about today as we celebrate my dear mother in law’s hard, challenging, and ultimately amazing life. She notes that “trying to understand, in the life of a woman, the life of the mind not coldly cerebral but impassioned , is her goal. Jule would not tell her story the way I tell it. She may not have even known she had passions. But I saw her, in whatever way she could within the boundaries of her generation and experiences, in Heilbrun’s words: “use power to take her place in whatever discourse was essential to action and the right to have her part matter.” Over the years I came to understand that Jule was conditioned to care for others and that she dedicated her life to mentoring, supporting, and literally nourishing all who came her way. And this was one of her greatest gifts to so many of us. At the same time however, she aspired to female autonomy and encouraged it in me. She definitely had a grip on her own power and the way she chose to live independently in the place she so deeply loved stands as the greatest evidence of this fact. The last years of her life were the hardest for her for the usual reasons, but also because she had to admit, though never in words out loud, and much later than and we would have wished, that she needed help from others to keep going. She always had a plan and there was a determination to keep to the plan no matter what circumstances presented themselves. For the longest time the PLAN did not accept the notion of losing independence.
From my perspective, Jule loved us by fiercely speaking up for us and modestly living her life independently as long as she could. She was not perfect, but she was brave and steadfast. The sorrow in my heart, is in truth, missing that which has been my delight.
I close with words of two writers: Jan Struther’s
“Biography”
One day my life will end and lest
Some whim should prompt you to review it,
Let her who knows the subject best
Tell the shortest way to do it.
Then say “Here lies one doubly blessed.”
Say “She was happy. Say “She knew it.”
Turn again To Life
If I should die and leave you here awhile,
Be not like others sore undone, who keep
Long vigils by the silent dust, and weep.
For my sake-turn again to life and smile,
Nerving thy heart and trembling hand to do
Something to comfort other hearts than thine.
Complete those unfinished tasks of mine
And I, perchance, may therein comfort you.
Mary Lee Hall
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