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Mary Louise Mielke was the wife of Wabash Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science Paul Mielke \u201942, but I attended her memorial service Thursday in the College\u2019s Detchon International Hall wanting to learn much more than that.<\/p>\nMary Louise Mielke was the wife of Wabash Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science Paul Mielke \u201942, but I attended her memorial service Thursday in the College\u2019s Detchon International Hall wanting to learn much more than that.<\/p>\n
As it turns out, \u201cfaculty wife\u201d wasn\u2019t a bad place to begin.<\/p>\n
As her son-in-law John R. Roberts noted, being the wife of a faculty member during the 40 years Mary Louise served this College \u201cwas like being a minister\u2019s wife: a job with no position description, certainly no salary, but with heavy obligations and expectations.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was legendary with generations of Wabash students who were hundreds, thousands, and even continents away from home. She gave them a home, Sunday dinner, and perhaps even the mother\u2019s care they needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way she touched their lives may have seemed to them like random acts of kindness. But there was no randomness to it. That was Mary Louise. She had a remarkable spirit of kindness, caring, and giving.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her daughter Margery recalled the hundreds of \u201chungry, lonely homesick sons of Wabash\u201d her mother welcomed into their home.<\/p>\n
“She loved those Wabash boys as if they were her own sons,\u201d Margery said.<\/p>\n
So it was right that Detchon Hall was packed last Thursday, that President White and Professor Mielke\u2019s close faculty colleagues were there along with friends and family to honor this woman who served Wabash in the ways that define a college community at its heart. Mary Louise was one of those who gave our students those outside of the classroom moments that endear this place to alumni, the acts that make one’s alma mater<\/em> literally a \u201cfostering, nurturing mother.\u201d<\/p>\n She did so with hospitality, “remarkable kindness,” good food, her performance and teaching of music, with her work as a librarian.<\/p>\n But that was just the tip of very bright and warm flame.<\/p>\n You felt that warmth as her daughter Kathy read Emily Dickinson\u2019s \u201cNature, the gentlest mother,\u201d one of Mary Louise\u2019s favorites:\n<\/p>\n \u201cNature, the gentlest mother,\u2028 You heard it as the soprano voice of her granddaughter and professional opera singer Elizabeth Andrews Roberts\u2014no doubt the most beautiful voice ever to grace this room\u2014energized the air with Schubert\u2019s Litanei.<\/em> You could imagine a grandmother\u2019s wonder and pride at such a voice coming from the grandchild she once held as a baby.<\/p>\n You heard it in the words of her daughter Margery as she recalled not only her mother\u2019s many talents, but also a surprising sense of adventure : During World War II, Mary Louise led her girl scout troop on a 400 mile journey from Crawfordsville to Beaver Island, Michigan on single-speed bikes with balloon tires.<\/p>\n You heard it when Margery recalled how her mother loved not only playing music, but teaching it, how she enjoyed playing flute in the kitchen with her son Paul and daughter Kathy, and how she was tickled when the dogs joined in!<\/p>\n \u201cIn her mind, the perfect quintet was bassoon, oboe, and flute, with soprano and alto dog.\u201d<\/p>\n She was a musician, a natural teacher, a librarian, a quilter and seamstress, and a lover of words\u2014whether reading Virgil, doing the New York Times crossword, or reading aloud to her children and grandchildren.<\/p>\n \u201cHow can so much goodness, loving-kindness, and generosity of spirit be housed in such a small person?\u201d Margery Mielke Roberts wondered aloud.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s what most moved me Thursday\u2014seeing how those talents and virtues continue to be housed in Mary Louise Mielke\u2019s children and grandchildren. I\u2019ve never been to a memorial service where the \u201cdeparted\u201d seemed so present in those she loved\u2014in the singing, in the reading of her favorite Latin quotation by her granddaughter, Caitlin, in the embraces between readings, in the shared laughter at family jokes, in the carefully crafted quilts laying on the the table in the corner.<\/p>\n \u201cWe never doubted for one moment that she loved us; that was her great gift to us,\u201d Margery Roberts said. \u201cHer love was the bedrock on which we built our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n It still is. As Mary Louise\u2019s granddaughter, Jessica, added: \u201cMy grandmother taught me some of the most important things I will ever know\u2014how to knead bread, how to knit, that words matter, and that loving means forgiving.<\/p>\n \u201cLast summer I asked my husband what he thought the soul was, and he said, \u2018the human capacity to love and to forgive.\u2019 If that is so, my grandmother was a soulful woman.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014Steve Charles<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mary Louise Mielke was the wife of Wabash Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science Paul Mielke \u201942, but I attended her memorial service Thursday in the College\u2019s Detchon International Hall wanting to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nImpatient of no child,\u2028
\nThe feeblest or the waywardest,\u2028
\nHer admonition mild\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n