Objet : FW: Please send to Weihsien Topica network

Subject: Please send to Weihsien Topica network

I have only just received news of the death of Donald Menzi. Here is the New York Times obituary.

Donald has added a bounty of information about the Weihsien Civilian Assembly Center -- diaries, letters, and paintings by Gertrude Wilder, I believe Donald's aunt -- who was interned in Weihsien

Donald and his wife also attended our life-altering reunion in Weihsien (now called Weifang ), August 17, 2005, the 60th anniversary of our liberation by the American Duck Mission team. That extraordinary -- mind-boggling -- anniversary celebration was orchestrated and sponsored by the People's Government of Weifang.

May all of us who experienced Weihsien make Donald Menzi our example in actively documenting and passing on what we know of this chapter in world history. Don't let the memories die with you.

Let me add here my everlasting thanks to Natasha Peterson and to Leopold Pander for giving us the medium to tell and share our memories and to document them on the Internet. Natasha is the creator of the world-wide Weihsien-topica network. Leopold is the creator of the Weihsien web site. If you haven't yet seen Leopold Pander's two-volume set of THE CHILDREN OF WEIHSIEN , give yourself a treat. Leopold has collected more than ten years of memories, photographs, paintings, from the Weihsien-topica network and from his Weihsien web site and published them in photo-quality books, titled The Children of Weihsien . You can also read that whole collection of The Children of Weihsien memories on www.weihsien-paintings.org

Mary Taylor Previte

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.

- See more at:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?pid=161184234#fbLoggedOut

Envoyé : lundi 19 août 2013 17:06
À : tapol@skynet.be

Objet : Follow-up to Linked-in refamily or others who might quest

Dear Leopold,

I am writing to see if you are the person responsible for the Weihsien website.

I am a writer in Los Angeles and I am currently doing research on the WWII civilian exchanges on the MS Gripsholm in June 1942 and September 1943. I had located the very interesting materials posted by Donald Menzi on the Wilders and Helen Burton and I also read the sad news of his death.

I know that he and others were working on books and had gathered materials that they were planning on posting or donating to an archive in New York. I was wondering if anyone had located additional materials discussing the Gripsholm voyages of the Wilders and Ms. Burton as well as any others from Weihsien. I did also see Howard Galt's interesting report.

Would you have a contact for Mr. Menzi's family or others who might be continuing this work? Or if you have any other suggestions of people or resources I might follow up with.

Thank you for considering this request.
Best,
Evelyn

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Evelyn Iritani
Principal
evelyn@dhmediashop.com
1-626-354-2515
www.dancinghorsemediashop.com