"MENZI-Donald Wilder. Slipped away peacefully at his Greenwich Village home on the morning of Wednesday, November 21st, just shy of his 75th birthday. Born in Ypsilanti, MI, Donald traversed the land between his family of Congregational missionaries in China, the Episcopalian priesthood and, finally, Reconstructionist Judaism in his adopted and beloved New York City. He attended Oberlin College, Bexley Hall Seminary when it was at Kenyon, Hebrew Union College and New York University for his Ph.D. His life was a blend of religion, Kabbala, music, education and what makes cities work. Since retiring from the Research Foundation at CUNY where his lifelong fascination with work-force development and education was given free rein, he has devoted himself to editing his ancestors' China papers in juxtaposition with contemporaneous New York Times reportage going back to the 1860s through the 1940s. The archive is expected to appear online at the Yale School of Divinity. Predeceased by his last wife, Matlea Fagin, he is survived by his wife of 13 years Jane Weprin-Menzi, and sons Mark (Sandy), Aaron (Aara), Richard (Naomi Luppescu), and daughter Rachel (Roberto Alvelaiz) and granddaugters Rachel, Gabriella and Teresa and grandsons Valdis, Liez and William. Also surviving him are his Weprin stepsons, Michael (Anne), Andrew (Tasha Fogelman) and Adam (Ludmila Silva) and stepdaughter Julia (Ryan Suda) as well stepgrandsons Connor, Cooper and Jack and stepgranddaughters Ariela (Ryan Wolff), Samira and Lily. All of the above, along with so many others, will miss this menschlichkeit man forever. Funeral services will be held on Friday morning at 11am at his synagogue, The West End Synagogue, 190 Amsterdam Ave., at the Southwest corner of 69th St., to which donations may be made if one should happen to desire.
... click on the pictures ...
... photos & story: THE 2005 CELEBRATIONS: My own family group (8 of us, spanning 3 generations) were met at the airport by a number of young volunteers from Weifang University holding aloft "Welcome Weihsieners" signs. A bus took us to Weifang ...
click for "home made" slide show. "THE REMAINING BUILDINGS"
CELEBRATING WEIHSIEN’S LIBERATION On August 17, 2005, the city of Weifang (formerly Weihsien), in Shandong Province, China, celebrated the 60th anniversary of the liberation by U.S. paratroopers of the Japanese concentration camp located there from 1943 to 1945. The “enemy nationals” interned there had included my grandparents, George and Gertrude Wilder, who had been missionary-teachers in China ... since 1894. ...
"AMERICANS' RETURN"
LIFE's Team Brings Story of Repatriate Homecomming
Most of the 1500 repatriates ... etc.
silent video
Gripsholm seen on TV --
[click on the camera]
Power Point Slide Show.
... water colours by Mrs. Gertrude Wilder ...
... excerpts from Donald Menzi's scrapbooks ...
Helen Burton's Elephant Shop
I remember my uncle, describing my grandparents homecoming after the 1943 repatriation, had written the following:
"Among our 1943 Xmas presents was a small, blue and white granite-ware bowl which Mother ate from throughout her time in the Concentration Camp and in the bowl was a card with the following: ...
