Thank so much to all those who attended Peg's memorial this weekend. A few folks had asked for the welcome remarks I offered, so I'm posting them here.
***

Welcome everyone, both those joining us via Zoom as well as those here in person at Willamette View.

My name is Lena, I’m Peg’s daughter-in-law. I want to take this opportunity to set the stage for this memorial service and offer a few words that might guide your experience this afternoon.

I think we can all agree on a few of Peg’s well-defined traits: she was meticulously and methodically detail-oriented, well-organized, thoughtful, and by far one of the least sentimental people I’ve ever met. So it’s not surprising to me, then, that despite her eagle-eyed attention to detail and penchant for planning every minute of her day with endless checklists, she left us no written instructions of her wishes for how to memorialize her life.

I’m pretty sure that if she were here today listening in, she would by now be squirming in... Read more her seat at the fact that all attention was on her. She was not someone who wanted to make a fuss, and yet she was also incredibly determined (put more simply: stubborn), to the regular chagrin of her family. She was not overtly religious or even spiritual, although in the 17 years that I knew her, she never volunteered her opinion of either. Discreet is probably another word to be added to the list, because yes, there’s always a list.

For better or worse, she closely guarded her internal emotional life until the very end. What I do know is that she brought her keen, scientifically-trained mind to every endeavor–a mind that thrived on the tasks of categorizing, organizing, and making sense of the world we live in.

This is the spirit with which I invite us all today to honor and celebrate Peg’s life. We’ve asked several people today to share their experiences of being in relationship with Peg over the years. Allow yourself to notice, with a scientist’s precision and curiosity, what emerges for you as you hear their stories. Notice the remarkable strengths, as well as the contradictions–those qualities that make us all stubbornly and imperfectly human.

Memorials are an opportunity to honor and celebrate the lives of those who have died, but they are also an inevitable opportunity to reflect on our own lives. In our Western culture, driven by productivity and tidy, measurable milestones and outcomes, we allow ourselves so few moments to pause and acknowledge the ultimate, unfathomable mysteries–that life is finite, that we still don’t know exactly how or why we’re here, and that despite many attempts to keep our feelings orderly and under wraps while dispassionately trying to make sense of the world and our place in it, it is the very stickiness of these emotions that make our human experience so rich and compelling.

So I invite you to sit today with the blurred boundaries between scientific order and cosmic chaos as we come together to honor this one human being, Margaret Ann Fluck Smith, who for the shortest of times in the scale of universal history, we all loved and were honored to be loved by. Be open to discovering something unexpected about this person you thought you knew. Notice how it feels in your body to remember her. Welcome in the feelings of love, regret, sadness, relief.

Yes, memorials are an opportunity to honor and celebrate the lives of those who have passed. But they are also for us, the living, to draw strength from loving community as we acknowledge that distinct existential quandary that we call impermanence. Read less

Thank so much to all those who attended Peg's memorial this weekend. A few folks had asked for the welcome remarks I offered, so I'm posting them here.
***

Welcome everyone, both those joining us via Zoom as well as those here in person at Willamette View.

My name is Lena, I’m Peg’s daughter-in-law. I want to take this opportunity to set the stage for this memorial service and offer a few words that might guide your experience this afternoon.

I think we can all agree on a few of Peg’s ... Read morewell-defined traits: she was meticulously and methodically detail-oriented, well-organized, thoughtful, and by far one of the least sentimental people I’ve ever met. So it’s not surprising to me, then, that despite her eagle-eyed attention to detail and penchant for planning every minute of her day with endless checklists, she left us no written instructions of her wishes for how to memorialize her life.

I’m pretty sure that if she were here today listening in, she would by now be squirming in her seat at the fact that all attention was on her. She was not someone who wanted to make a fuss, and yet she was also incredibly determined (put more simply: stubborn), to the regular chagrin of her family. She was not overtly religious or even spiritual, although in the 17 years that I knew her, she never volunteered her opinion of either. Discreet is probably another word to be added to the list, because yes, there’s always a list.

For better or worse, she closely guarded her internal emotional life until the very end. What I do know is that she brought her keen, scientifically-trained mind to every endeavor–a mind that thrived on the tasks of categorizing, organizing, and making sense of the world we live in.

This is the spirit with which I invite us all today to honor and celebrate Peg’s life. We’ve asked several people today to share their experiences of being in relationship with Peg over the years. Allow yourself to notice, with a scientist’s precision and curiosity, what emerges for you as you hear their stories. Notice the remarkable strengths, as well as the contradictions–those qualities that make us all stubbornly and imperfectly human.

Memorials are an opportunity to honor and celebrate the lives of those who have died, but they are also an inevitable opportunity to reflect on our own lives. In our Western culture, driven by productivity and tidy, measurable milestones and outcomes, we allow ourselves so few moments to pause and acknowledge the ultimate, unfathomable mysteries–that life is finite, that we still don’t know exactly how or why we’re here, and that despite many attempts to keep our feelings orderly and under wraps while dispassionately trying to make sense of the world and our place in it, it is the very stickiness of these emotions that make our human experience so rich and compelling.

So I invite you to sit today with the blurred boundaries between scientific order and cosmic chaos as we come together to honor this one human being, Margaret Ann Fluck Smith, who for the shortest of times in the scale of universal history, we all loved and were honored to be loved by. Be open to discovering something unexpected about this person you thought you knew. Notice how it feels in your body to remember her. Welcome in the feelings of love, regret, sadness, relief.

Yes, memorials are an opportunity to honor and celebrate the lives of those who have passed. But they are also for us, the living, to draw strength from loving community as we acknowledge that distinct existential quandary that we call impermanence. Read less

Thank you all for coming to this celebration of Peg’s life. I especially want to thank the family members and Willamette View friends who have helped us organize this event. A final thank-you goes to Peg’s long-time friends who contributed their photos and stories to Peg’s memorial website.

I will now give an overview of Peg’s multi-faceted life by showing slides that are organized by themes.

The first theme is family. The images start at 7 weeks of age with Peg in the arms of her father Paul Fluck and continue with the immediate family including mother Ellen and brother James. Peg was close to her aunt Louise and served as flower girl when Louise married Roy Yeazel.

The next theme is the Orchard Ridge neighborhood in Madison, Wisconsin. Peg lived there until she went to college and developed friendships that endured throughout her life. The neighborhood girls graduated from elementary school, went on camping trips, and participated in Girl Scout activities. Peg graduated from... Read more high school in Madison. Ruth Hara will speak next, and she provided pictures with her mother and herself.

Peg was especially close to a pair of twins, Peggy and Barbie, who visited us in California several times. Peg always planned a couple of nights away from home when they came, wanting to show the twins the birds, the flowers, and the scenery of the state’s best areas.

Peg continued her connections to the friends and family of her youth, especially the Yeazel branch of the family. Here is one of her cousin Sue Yeazel’s many visits to pick raspberries in our Pleasanton backyard. Here we are backpacking in the Desolation Wilderness of California and trying out a dune buggy on a California beach.

Peg loved to share her knowledge of the natural world. Here she is showing her cousin’s son how to dissect owl pellets that I picked up in our backyard.

Peg and I met at Oberlin College. One of her roommates, BJ Manaster, will describe that period. Our wedding occurred in Madison at the Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ three days after Christmas in 1970. Here are the mothers of the bride and groom and the mothers’ escorts. Here are two of the grandmothers.

After college we decided to go to the same graduate school, UC Berkeley. When I got a job in Livermore, we bought a house in Pleasanton that was our home for 39 years. During pregnancy Peg enjoyed daffodils in our yard. Brian was born in 1978, and Peg received her PhD in Zoology later that year. While Brian grew up, he had opportunities to be admired by my parents and grandfather and by my sister Jill and her husband Ray.

Peg had an especially close relationship with her mother, Ellen, who continued to live in Orchard Ridge after her husband died in 1961. Ellen made visits to California, and we went to Madison, giving Brian a chance to play in the snow. Ellen came for his high school graduation and many other times. … Here we are visiting in Madison with Peg’s brother James and his partner Julie; he built the ramp that allowed Peg to access her childhood home. For the occasion of her mother’s 90th birthday, Peg compiled her life story, selected pictures that I attached to multiple poster boards, and arranged a well-attended celebration at the neighborhood church.

Peg’s work as a zoologist is a major theme of her life. Here she is seen working inside a tent to get some protection from a desert wind. You will hear much more about her career from Marjorie Matocq. She forged strong connections with other researchers in Berkeley and from around the world. She always looked for chances to get those people together in order to sustain the connections through the years. Some of our Zoom participants today will recognize their younger selves in these pictures.

After Peg took disability retirement in 2000, she turned to volunteer work. Peg connected with this woman, Yourim, as a tutor in reading and speaking English. They started when Yourim’s three kids were young and continued until the children were going to college. We’ll hear later from Raymond Figueroa about Peg’s volunteer work at the Pleasanton Senior Center.

Travel is a major theme in Peg’s life. We both got the travel bug from our parents. During our marriage we took one or more trips every year. Our most frequent destination was the southwestern U.S., which we visited ten times while we lived in California. In 2018 we made an Armchair Travel presentation in the Terrace Auditorium, entertaining and educating residents with scenery and with information about the geology and cultural history of the Four Corners Area. Here are three images from that area. In this one Peg and 3-year-old Brian are sitting at the base of Delicate Arch in Arches National Park. Much later, Peg has driven her scooter into the restored ruin of Spruce Tree House at Mesa Verde. And here, she is seen in Red Canyon near Bryce Canyon National Park.

We traveled to so many other areas. We saw glaciers in Jasper park in Canada, skied by Lake Tahoe, rafted on the Rio Grande, and made multiple trips to Europe, often visiting open-air museums like this one in Bavaria. Peg walked on lava in Hawaii, visited the Mt Shasta region, Yellowstone, Idaho, Yosemite, and Glacier Bay.

Our small family was extended in 2015, and this is Peg holding our grandson Neil when he was a month old. In mid-2016 we moved into Willamette View; Peg planned the decorations in this corner of our apartment. As you’ll hear from Paul Bosshardt later, Peg helped to shape the party that Willamette View provided for the residents that moved here in 2016. A few years later, she still loved to dress up for Halloween; here is a Hoary Bat costume that Sally Giles and Kristen Larsen helped her make. And, Peg made children’s toys consisting of bean bags and scoops made from gallon jugs and sold them at the Arts and Crafts Sale in December 2021.

That is my summary of the life of a very energetic, determined, and resilient person. Read less

Thank you all for coming to this celebration of Peg’s life. I especially want to thank the family members and Willamette View friends who have helped us organize this event. A final thank-you goes to Peg’s long-time friends who contributed their photos and stories to Peg’s memorial website.

I will now give an overview of Peg’s multi-faceted life by showing slides that are organized by themes.

The first theme is family. The images start at 7 weeks of age with Peg in the arms of her father Paul... Read more Fluck and continue with the immediate family including mother Ellen and brother James. Peg was close to her aunt Louise and served as flower girl when Louise married Roy Yeazel.

The next theme is the Orchard Ridge neighborhood in Madison, Wisconsin. Peg lived there until she went to college and developed friendships that endured throughout her life. The neighborhood girls graduated from elementary school, went on camping trips, and participated in Girl Scout activities. Peg graduated from high school in Madison. Ruth Hara will speak next, and she provided pictures with her mother and herself.

Peg was especially close to a pair of twins, Peggy and Barbie, who visited us in California several times. Peg always planned a couple of nights away from home when they came, wanting to show the twins the birds, the flowers, and the scenery of the state’s best areas.

Peg continued her connections to the friends and family of her youth, especially the Yeazel branch of the family. Here is one of her cousin Sue Yeazel’s many visits to pick raspberries in our Pleasanton backyard. Here we are backpacking in the Desolation Wilderness of California and trying out a dune buggy on a California beach.

Peg loved to share her knowledge of the natural world. Here she is showing her cousin’s son how to dissect owl pellets that I picked up in our backyard.

Peg and I met at Oberlin College. One of her roommates, BJ Manaster, will describe that period. Our wedding occurred in Madison at the Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ three days after Christmas in 1970. Here are the mothers of the bride and groom and the mothers’ escorts. Here are two of the grandmothers.

After college we decided to go to the same graduate school, UC Berkeley. When I got a job in Livermore, we bought a house in Pleasanton that was our home for 39 years. During pregnancy Peg enjoyed daffodils in our yard. Brian was born in 1978, and Peg received her PhD in Zoology later that year. While Brian grew up, he had opportunities to be admired by my parents and grandfather and by my sister Jill and her husband Ray.

Peg had an especially close relationship with her mother, Ellen, who continued to live in Orchard Ridge after her husband died in 1961. Ellen made visits to California, and we went to Madison, giving Brian a chance to play in the snow. Ellen came for his high school graduation and many other times. … Here we are visiting in Madison with Peg’s brother James and his partner Julie; he built the ramp that allowed Peg to access her childhood home. For the occasion of her mother’s 90th birthday, Peg compiled her life story, selected pictures that I attached to multiple poster boards, and arranged a well-attended celebration at the neighborhood church.

Peg’s work as a zoologist is a major theme of her life. Here she is seen working inside a tent to get some protection from a desert wind. You will hear much more about her career from Marjorie Matocq. She forged strong connections with other researchers in Berkeley and from around the world. She always looked for chances to get those people together in order to sustain the connections through the years. Some of our Zoom participants today will recognize their younger selves in these pictures.

After Peg took disability retirement in 2000, she turned to volunteer work. Peg connected with this woman, Yourim, as a tutor in reading and speaking English. They started when Yourim’s three kids were young and continued until the children were going to college. We’ll hear later from Raymond Figueroa about Peg’s volunteer work at the Pleasanton Senior Center.

Travel is a major theme in Peg’s life. We both got the travel bug from our parents. During our marriage we took one or more trips every year. Our most frequent destination was the southwestern U.S., which we visited ten times while we lived in California. In 2018 we made an Armchair Travel presentation in the Terrace Auditorium, entertaining and educating residents with scenery and with information about the geology and cultural history of the Four Corners Area. Here are three images from that area. In this one Peg and 3-year-old Brian are sitting at the base of Delicate Arch in Arches National Park. Much later, Peg has driven her scooter into the restored ruin of Spruce Tree House at Mesa Verde. And here, she is seen in Red Canyon near Bryce Canyon National Park.

We traveled to so many other areas. We saw glaciers in Jasper park in Canada, skied by Lake Tahoe, rafted on the Rio Grande, and made multiple trips to Europe, often visiting open-air museums like this one in Bavaria. Peg walked on lava in Hawaii, visited the Mt Shasta region, Yellowstone, Idaho, Yosemite, and Glacier Bay.

Our small family was extended in 2015, and this is Peg holding our grandson Neil when he was a month old. In mid-2016 we moved into Willamette View; Peg planned the decorations in this corner of our apartment. As you’ll hear from Paul Bosshardt later, Peg helped to shape the party that Willamette View provided for the residents that moved here in 2016. A few years later, she still loved to dress up for Halloween; here is a Hoary Bat costume that Sally Giles and Kristen Larsen helped her make. And, Peg made children’s toys consisting of bean bags and scoops made from gallon jugs and sold them at the Arts and Crafts Sale in December 2021.

That is my summary of the life of a very energetic, determined, and resilient person. Read less