Muriel “Boodie” Wilson Werbel, 94, died peacefully on Saturday, May 11, in Rochester, Minn. She was born Sept. 22, 1918, in Chicago, Ill.
Having lived her life fully and actively and with an incredibly sharp mind, it seems that she decided to leave us quickly once she could no longer live independently.
Throughout her life, first as a child growing up in Chicago, and then as an adult in Milwaukee, Delavan, Carson City, Nev., and Rochester, she was dedicated to learning and using her mind through formal education.
She attended and participated in a variety of performing arts activities, played mental games such as Scrabble, bridge and cribbage, did crossword puzzles, and participated in book clubs.
In terms of a formal education, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of Chicago in 1940. Much later when she was close to being an empty nester, she went back to college and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in secondary education in 1971 and continued to study languages after this. She continued to take classes in Rochester through the Learning is Forever program with friends.
Although her love of reading was challenged when her vision was significantly impaired through macular degeneration, she continued to “read” using a reading machine and listening to audio books. She also liked to help others learn, which she did, for example, as a docent at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City, Nev., as well as at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
Given Boodie’s love of learning, it is not surprising that she effectively fostered life-long learning in her four children. Without putting too much pressure on them, she provided many opportunities for learning in school, music lessons, dance lessons, foreign language lessons, geography lessons integrated into travel, Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts. She was a troop leader with both scouting groups.
She was a wonderful role model for dealing with the aging process and change. After being married for over 50 years to her husband, Harold, in a deteriorating relationship, she made the difficult decision to obtain a divorce and start a new life. This is what precipitated her move to Rochester, where she quickly became integrated into the community.
She pushed herself to try new things in her later years, such as acting in three community plays in her 80s, including one in which she played a hooker. She also attended clogging and tap dancing classes into her 90s and participated in the recitals.
In addition to her involvement in the performing arts, she loved attending movies, plays, orchestra and dance performances and visiting museums. While living in Carson City, Nev., she supported the Reno Orchestra in their fund-raising endeavors, including cooking very popular French dinners sold through a silent auction. She continued to auction off her French dinners in Rochester for the Unitarian Church.
Boodie loved to plan and organize social activities, often involving family but many times extending beyond. When she lived in Delavan with Harold and their children, she would have celebrations at holidays with her parents, Monte “Pops” and Fanny “Honey;” brother, Bud, and his wife, Adia, along with their children, Sandy, Donna, and Michael; her brother-in-law, Lou, and wife Renee, along with their children, Linda and Rex.
While at Charter House, she organized both a Monday and a Thursday night dinner group.
Given her love of both learning and family, it is not surprising that she became interested in genealogy in her 60s, when she began the time-consuming process of writing a family history. This project involved a lot of library research in Salt Lake City and Philadelphia, as well as interviewing a number of distant family members and gathering old family photographs. The end product is a very detailed and well-written family history that is a gift for future generations.
One of Muriel’s greatest passions was traveling and talking about her travel adventures. She traveled to near 100 countries and attended 85 Elder Hostels, where she could combine her love of travel with learning. She would spend time prior to each trip doing research on the countries and their cultures.
When her children were young, they went on driving summer vacations. She loved reading AAA book descriptions of each town and city as the family traveled through them. She took her four granddaughters, Heidi, Marcy, Meg and Betsy on separate memorable vacations. In her later years, when her macular degeneration prevented her from traveling alone, Judie and Rochester friends traveled with her on a number of vacations.
Related to her travel interests, she loved having people from other countries stay with the family through the American Field Service program (Alberto Barchilon, Argentina, and Jose Rapatsalahy, Madagascar). A number of other foreign travelers were welcomed into the household in Delavan and then in Carson City.
She will be long remembered and greatly missed by her children, Richard, San Francisco, Calif.; Larry, Solon, Ohio; James, Ames, Iowa, and Judie Sage, Nelson, Wis.; her grandchildren Heidi, Marcy, Meg, Betsy, Ian, and Briana; and her six great-grandchildren, Nakia, Nya, Delilah, Desmond, Theo, and Milo. She will also be missed by many friends and other relatives.
She was preceded in death by a grandson, Brian, her brother Millard “Bud” Wilson, his wife, Adia, her brother-in-law, Lou Rosenblum, and his wife, Renee.
The family thanks the following people for being good friends, sources of support, and care giving: her daughter Judie, who did an incredible job as a caregiver and fellow traveler; Home Health at Charter House, Seasons Hospice, particularly her nurse, Patty Harriman; the caring community at Charter House, including Sandy Thielen, the bus driver; and community friends, most notably Emily Anderson and Brenda Rew.
Services will be held on Sunday, July 21, in the Charter House Chapel, Rochester, Minn.
Even though she loved flowers and gardening, she requested in lieu of flowers that contributions be made to the Ronald McDonald House, the Rochester Easter Seal Medical Equipment Loan Program, or the Minnesota Library for the Blind.
