Jeannette's cemetery plot in Portsmouth

 

Jeannette's page in the Star Island Conferee Memorial Book (with thanks to Irene Bush for writing such a lovely tribute!)

 

Jeannette's stone in the Star Island Memorial Garden

 

Memorial Prayer by Rev. Ron Engel (read at Jeannette's Service)

MEDITATION/PRAYER FOR JEANNETTE HOPKINS

In the same drawer in which she left us her wishes for this memorial service, Jeannette Hopkins also left a passage from a memoir of the actress Rosamond Gaston which tells us something about how Jeanette perceived herself in her last years  It reads as follows:

“Now I am in the decline of my eighth decade and live so much more in the people, the books, the works of art, the landscape than in my own skin, that of self.  Except as this wee homunculus of a perceiving subject, little is left over.  A complete life may be one ending in so full an identification with the not-self that there is no self left to die.”

We know that Jeannette identified deeply with “people, books, works of art, the landscape” and did so throughout her life. 

There was a Whitmanesque quality to Jeannette’s faith.  Walt Whitman, fellow journalist and resident of Camden, who wrote:

          “In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less. . .

          To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,

          All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.” (p.39 )

Jeannette’s bold and inclusive humanism testified to the democratic splendor of the human and evolutionary story -- to the dream of universal liberty, equality and solidarity; to the free mind and spirit; high adventure and hard work; self-affirmation and moral integrity; the saving power of humor; universal human rights and responsibilities; vigorous participation in public life and positive government for the common good; the rule of law; respect and care for nature, otherkind, and our lives as natural organisms; critical reason and tested experience as the way to truth; artistic creativity and education as the way to build cultures of excellence and make a sustainable place for ourselves in the universe -- in spite of our daily experience of senseless violence and personal and collective betrayal.  

It so happens I was scheduled to meet with Jeannette this week to discuss a book project tentatively titled “gospels of the democratic faith.”  She would have had much to say that I needed to hear -- and she would have insisted that I hear it.  She was no “wee homunculus.” 

Jeannette, we grieve your passing and are not ready to let you go into self-less oblivion.  You grew your great soul through your great love of the world.  It was because of your own strong sense of authorship, won, no doubt, at great cost, that you could speak your mind truthfully to us. You were our spiritual midwife. We insist on remaining in dialogue with you and through you accountable to a world worthy of our respect and striving. 

How does one pray at a memorial service for a distinguished congregant of democratic splendor?  

Must we not pray for all of us, Jeannette as one among us, one of “we the people” she so loved, a bright star in the heavens of our common humanity and common Earth?

Let us so pray.

We join together on this holy day in thankfulness for the life of Jeannette Hopkins and all those whose labors have sustained us over the generations.

We pray that Jeannette and every man and woman who has been faithful to the promise inherent in the gift of our Earthly existence shall find a lasting place in the enveloping mystery we call reality.

We pray that we shall gather the strength to join her and her comrades in the global struggle between justice and injustice, sufficiency and luxury.  

That by such action we shall at last define ourselves as the species which can govern itself in accord with the laws of reason and nature, and establish, as our founders dared hope, “good government from reflection and choice”

We pray that our authorship will be “of the highest usefulness” because it demonstrates the highest rigor, imagination and sympathy, and because we are pursuing it for the “good and enlightenment of all the people” and for the planet, not for the pampering of any class, profession, nation or religion;

We pray that we may each find the redeeming reciprocity Jeannette found between the cultivation of our inner lives and the cultivation of our gardens;

And we pray that like countless persons over the course of history who have found the burden of grief lifted from their shoulders by remembering faithful witnesses to life’s splendor, so too, we will find in our remembrance of Jeannette today consolation for our grief at her passing:

“But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restored and sorrows end.”  (Shakespeare)

Amen.

Ron Engel

September 5, 2011

Postcards from the Vatican, remarks by Christopher Corbally

Postcards from the Vatican

So Jeannette kept a number of the postcards that I sent her while on my
summer travels – how lovely to know this! The cards helped confirm the
dates of my stay with her before I headed for the IRAS conferences on
Star Island. But they had a mischievous element since, when I wrote
them, I was often at the Vatican Observatory’s headquarters in Castel
Gandolfo and so could find a picture with a Papal theme to grace
Jeannette’s home. That a Jesuit priest in the Pope’s service could have
such a deep friendship with so solid a Unitarian might be one of the
world’s wonders, but on reflection it is not so surprising. Jeannette
was devoted to the truth in whatever form it can be found, and this was
the basis of our conversations which I shall always treasure. Yes,
Jeannette’s large spirit lives on in all of us who knew and continue to
love her dearly.

Christopher Corbally, S.J.
Vice Director
Vatican Observatory




Here's a photo of Jeannette and Chris Corbally as he was on his way to or from Star Island.  

Poem about death bookmarked by Jeannette

The book next to Jeannette's bed  was Richard Wilbur's Anterooms which Jeannette had told her neighbor was "all about death."  Here is the poem that Jeannette had marked with her business card at the time she died, one she had clearly been reading recently.

The House

by Richard Wilbur August 31, 2009

Sometimes, on waking, she would close her eyes

For a last look at that white house she knew

In sleep alone, and held no title to,

And had not entered yet, for all her sighs.

What did she tell me of that house of hers?

White gatepost; terrace; fanlight of the door;

A widow’s walk above the bouldered shore;

Salt winds that ruffle the surrounding firs.

Is she now there, wherever there may be?

Only a foolish man would hope to find

That haven fashioned by her dreaming mind.

Night after night, my love, I put to sea.

Here's a link to the Richard Wilber reading his poems, with the second one being "The House."
http://www.kwls.org/podcasts/richard_wilbur_2010/



Remarks of Author Matthew Klingle at Jeannette's Memorial Service

Author Matthew Klingle's remarks:

The day I met Jeannette six-plus years ago, sheets of snow fell sideways as I tried to keep from sliding off the Maine Turnpike.  It was February, yet more than chilling than the weather was the prospect of meeting my future editor.  I already knew of her formidable reputation; a senior colleague and friend, Anne Whiston Spirn, had recommended her with ample warning.  Plus, thanks to Google, I saw the distinguished list of authors she had advised.  I thought I knew what I had agreed to until Jeannette opened the door.  Then, I slipped off the road completely.

As we sat in her sitting room, with her Tibetan spaniel, Star, sniffing my ankles and finding me most uninteresting, Jeannette briefly praised my very rough manuscript before saying: “You can write very well, even beautifully, and you are a prodigious researcher but you are often an undisciplined thinker and the entire manuscript lacks any form.”  Ouch.  And the criticisms only got more incisive from there. Non-stop. At least I took some comfort when she said I was one of the few authors who cooked eggs properly (if scrambled, soft and slightly runny with not too much butter) or made a martini correctly (dry, but not banishing vermouth completely).  On most days with Jeannette, I was completely lost.

As I recounted my experiences to colleagues at Bowdoin and beyond, most thought I was a masochist.  A few, however, realized what a gift I had received.  Soon, I realized it, too.  In every criticism of metaphors overextended, assertions unsupported, grammar forgotten, or storylines neglected there was a constant stream of support.  She was tough because she thought I could take it; more accurately, she believed absolutely that what I had to say mattered.  Every critique, every marked-up page was confirmation of that even when doubts gnawed at my confidence.

In Jeannette, I had more than an editor; I had a mentor in the original sense in Homeric myth.  Between discussions over my manuscript, she listened patiently to my anxieties as a young professor and new father.  Just as readily, she offered advice (Jeannette always had an opinion) but she offered something else, too: courage tempered by wisdom.  When I worried that my final book might be too political and interdisciplinary for an untenured historian, she parried my angst by saying: buck up and have the guts to stand by what you write.  I did and I continue to reap the benefits of my courage.

Over time, I discovered the foundation of her own strong convictions: her work.  Listening to adventures in journalism or many years in publishing, I was reminded that Google cannot yet tell us everything about a person’s life.  Every visit revealed an extraordinary woman committed to justice, to equality, to scholarship and to good books.  Each anecdote she told about an author or social activist or editor emboldened me because I saw that each encounter she recounted had emboldened her. 

In the end, it was the privilege of joining Jeannette’s life that I treasure most.  On my last visit earlier this spring, between conversations and eating, I looked again at her shelves.  There, on the wall, sandwiched between some of the greatest men and women of postwar American letters.  Later, she remarked that she recently used me as an example for another nervous first-time author of great promise who was reluctant to believe in their work.  At that moment, I realized I had become a true scholar and author.  Jeannette had helped to make me into the person I had wanted to become.

I’m forever grateful that a path I never anticipated traveling brought me to Portsmouth today to honor this singular human being. I grieve that I cannot work with her on another book, yet my gratitude toward her is boundless.  She may be gone, but the work remains.  There are more roads yet to travel and she has pointed the way.