Another memorial service

Today there was a memorial service at the Dummerston Church for Winnie Vogt, a much beloved member who died last October at the age of 92. I had known Winnie for close to 50 years. She and her husband, Roy, moved to Dummerston just a year before our family moved back to Dummerston full-time in 1973 and we built the house I am living in now. A big connection with Winnie was Wellesley College: she graduated in 1950, just months before Shirley arrived as a freshman there. Back in 2010, when I embarked on my project of transcribing Shirley's letters to her parents from Wellesley, writing explanatory background notes and sending them to Katie, my granddaughter, who was just then entering college herself, Winnie took a big interest in the project. I really enjoyed sharing with her what I was doing, because she was so excited by it. Here is what I said about the project in my blog back in October, 2010: "I started a wonderful project about a month ago. It came about as the result of running across an archive of letters that Shirley (Katie's grandmother, who passed away in 1998) wrote home to her parents when she went off to college at Wellesley, fall of 1950, sixty years ago this fall. When I learned from Katie that she wished she could get more "snail mail" I got the idea of sending her annotated copies of Shirley's letters home. It's turned out to be a fascinating project for me, and I think Katie is really enjoying it too. Shirley was amazingly prolific in writing letters (or post cards) home. She wrote on average once a week, sometimes more. They are full of information about her courses, her dates, college life, her roommate, lectures and concerts, etc. I'm sending Katie a photocopy of the original letter, but in addition I am transcribing each letter and footnoting it to provide background information and explanations of allusions to people, places, things, etc. I'm sending them each at the time Shirley sent them originally. So far I've sent four and am up to October 15th. If I am given the time to complete this project I hope to turn it into a book. It should be a wonderful window into the life of an amazing woman as well as a glimpse of college life in the 1950s."*************************** Winnie Vogt was a passionate advocate for social justice, for racial equality, for the education of children, and especially for promoting reading in the lives of children. Pastor Shawn read a passage from Huck Finn in the service, a passage Winnie loved and often shared with children, in which Huck decides NOT to turn in his black friend, Jim, an escaped slave, to his owners and thus return him to slavery, even though he had been taught that that would be the Christian thing to do, and to fail to do it would send him to Hell. "I guess I'll just go to Hell," he says to himself in a moment of deep resolve. This is a famous passage, and it is the epitome of what made literature great for Winnie, and why she was so passionate about introducing children to great books. It was a lovely service. We sang four anthems as a choir, and three hymns as well - all chosen by Winnie before she died. That is the way to do it! They were all great choices and we enjoyed singing them: The Brother James' Air, which is a setting of the 23rd Psalm; Jerusalem, poetry by William Blake and music by Parry, a stirring anthem made famous by the movie Chariots of Fire; Over the Rainbow, in a harmonization that is very "bluesy;" and The Lord Bless You and Keep You, by Peter Lutkin, a very well-known piece (at least in my time). The hymns were Morning Has Broken, I Sing A Song of the Saints of God, and Be Thou My Vision, all favorites of mine as well. So - a very satisfyig experience. The only fly in the ointment was that I woke up with a VERY sore knee this morning, and could hardly walk. I managed to get there, sat on a stool while I sang, and got home, all without falling down. I hope it is better tomorow, which is a Savanna day.

Winifred Vogt (1929-2021).