Colleen McCormick, of blessed memory

Dear classmates,

I may not have all the facts correct, but it is the memory, which is important.  For those of you who knew Colleen, I’m sure you’ll all agree that a wonderful person who had a promising life ahead of her was tragically lost in a fatal accident while still a college student. It is our great loss.

There are certain things I remember well.  It was my last year at Indiana U., and I had come home to my apartment in the late afternoon.  I got a phone call from my sister, Jan, who also was there, and she said she was trying all afternoon to get in touch with me before I read the papers. Our little local airline, no longer in existence, Lake Central  Airline, which had boasted that it never had had an accident, just had a fatal one.  Colleen was on the flight back to the U. of Michigan after she had come home for the weekend for a wedding party for her sister, Wynn. She never made it back.

I considered Colleen my “best friend,” although there were many years it was shared with others.  In our childhood, Kathy (Dammon) Colleen and I, the gang of upper Sunset Blvd. were often inseparable, and the Weiler twins, both Susan and Sarah, who lived two blocks down, were very often part of it.

I think Colleen arrived between first and second grade, maybe it was K and first.  Their house was three houses away from mine.  We never were in the same classes at Morton School, or Burtsfield, but that made no difference to the neighborhood culture, which included everything—bike riding, tree climbing, even pogo stick hopping to Burtsfield in the fifth or sixth grade when the three of us asked for a pogo stick (for Christmas gifts and my Hanukkah gift).  Summer held the night  “Hide’ n go seek” and “Capture the flag” games with the gang of boys  that also inhabited our turf. We were all part of that. Walking to Purdue U.  swimming classes and wearing those  awful baggy swimsuits, and walking back, stopping for Tastee Freeze,  were other  summer activities we all did together. Of course, we  all carpooled in the winter  and walked or rode our bikes to school in the spring and fall, which helped build the bond.  Halloween often ended with hot chocolate at Colleen’s house.

Perhaps one of the more unique creations the three of us built was the all-winter-long game of Monopoly, which we played in Colleen’s house.  The game lasted about three months.  We each had our area of the board we always bought, and it seemed that I was the one that always was the most in debt (a fore bringer of my future economic  sense). Card games, Clue and Scrabble  also helped us get through the drab winter days when we weren’t on sleds. Those games ended when we could play outside more.

Looking back on those idyllic childhood memories, I can’t think of anything special about her personality that made us such good friends.  We just were because we were together all the time.  In retrospect, however,  there were several negative qualities  that she did not have—jealousy, meanness, tattling, pretentiousness.  The lack of these made the friendship solid.

One can’t talk about Colleen without mentioning her mother, to us, Mrs .”Mc Cah-mick”.  She came from Boston, and was a Wellesley grad (which meant nothing to me then, but I remembered well when Orly chose to go to Wellesley).  She spoke like the Kennedys, dropping R’s where Hoosiers emphasized them, and then adding a R at the end of a word that ended in A.  So  I was “little Mash-er  Walerstein”, and when things went well, they were, “Fine, fine and dandy”.  She had a strong sense of fairness and decency, and often  scolded us for excluding others in our play. Of course Colleen’s whole family, including Skippy, was terrific, but to me as a child, her mom was the most memorable.

When we graduated from that pastoral  school that Burtsfield was in its first years, we all descended to the ancient junior high.  Colleen was in some of my classes, and in some of our many interest groups, and not in others, but again, the three of us usually went to school and back together.  I don’t know about you, but to me junior high is usually recalled as a nightmare, as in the “mixers” held after school.  In actuality, there were some extremely funny events, such as the dance for a talent show  a group of us, including Colleen,  did to “Flying Purple People Eater”,  with costumes made from pillow cases. 

There was one small event  during that period that probably many never knew about,  which  may have somehow influenced  one of her characteristics-quiet persistence until  there was mastery.   We all joined 4-H one summer, and took  sewing and cooking.  In sewing we learned all sorts of stupid things that no one ever did again, such as pre-washing the material to let it shrink first. We made aprons.  Come  Tippecanoe County Faire, and we proudly exhibited our items.  There were lots of blue ribbons and red ribbons.  There was one, just one, white ribbon (a level below the red).  It was Colleen’s.  How adults could be so callous as to designate just one 12-year-old novice to the lowest level, I don’t know.  Nor do I know why hers was considered inferior to mine, which certainly wasn’t so hot.  There was a result from that, however. Rather than be devastated from the shame, which she did feel,  Colleen didn’t stop sewing.  She continued, and by the time she finished high school, she had sewed everything from a bathing suit to a long winter coat.  If you don’t know anything about sewing, trust me, that is quite a feat.

In high school and outside of it, Colleen did a million things.  She was very active in musical events-not only band, but dance band, and a choral group.  I think she learned the organ, too,  after many years of piano.  She volunteered at the hospital- a “Candy Striper”.  She was active in her church group, and many, many other school activities.  Of course, she was a very good student.  Our Sunset Lane group, which now included her neighbor, Paulette Backer, often studied for exams together.  Physics was at my house, with Dad helping, but I remember many times sitting around her bedroom with books and notes studying for something.  Okay, she still went in for Frank Sinatra  at the time that the Motown sound was already coming in, but hey, she read “Moby Dick” in high school, and  not because she had to.

I think in all these areas there was an attitude of modesty.  She never advertised herself.  She never tried to stand out.  She was recognized, because she did so much, always with an attitude of responsibility, and a low-keyed demeanor.   Her humor, too, usually tended toward the understatement.

Her common words were, “Duhh”  (interesting how that sound  continued even into my daughter’s generation 45 years later)  and “Do-tell.”  Like all good friends, there were countless hours talking about---everything.

Colleen and I double dated to the senior prom, and the four of us were perhaps the only people who went bird-watching very early the next morning after the prom.  I think that was Pete Burr’s idea, not hers, but it really was fun.

After h.s., Colleen went to University of Michigan on a  Merit Scholarship.  She spent long  hours in labs as some kind of life science major.   I went to Israel after high school, and it was great to get her letters. When I came back from my   ”worldly”, Jewish and socialistic experiences in Israel and Europe, naturally I felt very alienated from part of our little W.L. world, and from some of my former friends who had not shared such experiences.  It wasn’t that way with Colleen.  We just picked up where we had left off, and communicated, I don’t think terribly often, but consistently  through the next years while I was at I.U. and  she was at U. of Michigan.

******

What a tragedy for the family—a celebration of their oldest daughter’s marriage, and the totally unexpected loss of Colleen, who had flown in for the celebration. I  again thank   Mark Moriarity for arranging some kind of memorial service I remember I attended.

I kept up with the family throughout the years, even though I was living in Israel much of that time.   I  almost met Kelly, her younger sister, when I first came to Los Angeles in 1982.  She was in San Diego, but then we lost contact.

When we are a young adult, and fly the coop, there are many events, places and people that we leave behind.  I never returned to  to live in W.L., but my thoughts and attitudes certainly returned once I became a mother.  Having a really good friend is an extremely valuable attribute to growing up.  Losing the person is a great tragedy, but the good memories are never lost.  They become an integral part of you.

Thanks, Colleen.  I love you.  “Do-tell.”

Marcia