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Senior News July, 2004 Vol. 25. No. 7
Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.
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Humboldt Senior Resource Center Back issues Table of Contents
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Remembering Spirit - Edilith Eckart by Barbara Clark The huge public memorial for Arcata peace-maker Edilith Eckart filled the Arcata Community Center June 27. It was a fitting tribute to an amazing woman. She died June 16 after getting her wish - to live out her days enjoying her life in Arcata. We at Senior News had our share of Edilith on our pages since I've been editor because for 15 or more years she has been one of my personal heroes. My first page one story in March 1995 pictured Edilith with the generous yellow forsythia that fills her yard every spring. She was on her way with her daughter and grandson to Palestine and Israel where the family would plant trees as part of an irrigation and restoration project sponsored by the Earthstewards Network. A former Navy officer and WWII vet who at age 60 began writing a column against nuclear war for the Arcata Union, she was honored by the national Veterans for Peace in February 1996. She had battled the Arcata city council for the town to become a sanctuary during the Gulf War. She was honored by the American Association of University Women in 1998 during Women's History Month. For our July fourth story in 1998, Edilith wrote about how she dealt with all the negative information in the world - she worked to create a system of peace rather than of war. "Thank, appreciate, forgive, be fair," she wrote. That year she traveled against U.S. regulations with former Attorney General Ramsey Clark to deliver medical supplies and money to the sanctioned Iraqi people. In 2000 she was honored for her many years of activism by the Physicians for Social Reponsibility. She often led and participated in friendship tours to the former Soviet Union. In April 1986, she and other American travelers were irradiated by the fallout from Chernobyl. On the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombings, Eckart was chosen as a WWII veteran to present the Japanese with a Letter of Reconciliation and Repentance signed by 8,000 Americans. In February 2001, she wrote in Senior News about one of her trips to Iraq where she went to inspect the water plant repairs she and other Veterans for Peace had made in Labbani. One of the co-founders of the Women in Black protest in Arcata, Edilith recently had helped form a local chapter of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. The stories about Edilith Eckart could fill this newspaper. Among my beloved memories are many that will stay with me. One is of the chamomile circle she had in her back yard along Campbell Creek in Arcata. She explained that chamomile was a healing herb, and that anytime I wanted to I was welcome to come to lie down on Mother Earth and cry my sorrows into the chamomile circle. She had listed her back yard with the Sanctuary Garden Project, joining a network of such back yard sanctuaries around the country. Another vivid memory was on our way to an Earthstewards summer gathering at Britenbush Hot Springs, Oregon, in the early 1990s. I still lived in Berkeley at the time, and Edilith and I had carpooled and traded stories of our lives and the journeys we had taken to arrive in this car together on this journey. I was gifted with her tears as, during our conversation, she had a precious "aha" about her life. Later in our women's circle, we sang to the Mama Lions among us, and there was Edilith in the center with the other elders - Mama Lion, Mama Lion, Mane white as snow, Eyes clear and keen, Mirror of a knowing soul. And no story about Edilith feels complete without one that always made her laugh when she would tell it - a whole group of protesters were being arrested in the Rotunda of the nation's Capitol. Awaiting the surprisingly cordial treatment by the police officers, the group of protestors kept singing. Since she was the oldest in the crowd, the officers saved her for last. So my mind will always see Edilith Eckart in the Capitol Rotunda singing "For the Beauty of the Earth" solo as the kind young officer came to her and put her hand on his arm to escort her to the paddy wagon. |
Senior News