Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Two cohousing founders lost this week: Michael Black, Roberta Wilson

[Michael Black (mblack]

Dear Raines,

I am just now beginning to engage on Michael's 3500 unanswered and unread
emails. I see that you mention a memorial fund. Actually, it is true that a
Michael Black Memorial Fund at Redwood Credit Union has been set up, account
number 303540. The address is P O Box 6104, Santa Rosa, CA 95406. If people
prefer to have it known who is contributing, then they could mail to
Alexandra Hart, 1350 - F Yulupa Ave., Santa Rosa, CA 95405.

There has been a very great outpouring of love and support, and I am
overwhelmed with the true community that Michael created wherever he went.
Four separate communities, two of them cohousing, participated greatly in
his memorial service and in the work required to make this large event
occur.

My heartfelt thanks go out to everyone who loved him back.

Alexandra


> I am sorry to have to report this week that two people who have made
> noted contributions to cohousing have died of heart attacks this week.
> 
> Architect Michael Black, 70, died Tuesday. He lived at two Sonoma
> County (Northern California) cohousing neighborhoods he created:
> Yulupa Cohousing (Santa Rosa, CA) of late and previously at Two Acre
> Wood (Sebastopol, CA); he was in the process of co-creating the first
> affordable-homeowner new-build cohousing, Sequoia Village, also in
> Sebastopol.
> 
> I saw Michael a few weeks ago as he and his wife Alexandra Hart were
> giving a cohousing presentation for a forming group at a meditation
> center on the San Francisco peninsula. He was energetic, active, and
> fully present, and I only later learned that he had had a heart attack
> a few months earlier. He did make reference to his mortality, in terms
> of the urgency to do some presentations and share some insights at the
> coming National Cohousing Conference in Boston this June... "I don't
> know how many more I'll make it to," he told me.
> 
> I was skeptical at first, when I met him, of his concept that you
> could create a successful cohousing community with minimal
> participation during the development process from the future
> residents, but I have since visited and help facilitate at Yulupa
> Cohousing and I became a believer.
> 
> We will sorely miss him, his leadership and inspiration.
> 
> We've set up a a memorial page (with links to his site and a newspaper
> obituary) and welcome memories and stories at the Northern California
> Cohousing website:
> http://www.norcalcoho.org/
> 
> I'll share information about where donations may be sent in his memory
> as soon as we get that; a fund has been set up.
> ---
> Roberta Wilson, 53, passed away Sunday; she was a co-founder of
> Winslow Cohousing (Bainbridge Island, WA) and was noted for her
> visibility in the Great Peace March of 1986 (which I understand other
> cohousing leaders were also a part of); cohousing neighbors commented
> on her passion for social justice and sense of peace.
> 
> You can find her obituary in the Seattle Times:
> http://tinyurl.com/688jg7
> 
> I understand the cohousing conference planning team and national board
> is meeting to determine what kind of honoring of their work and
> contributions (and other communities-movement leaders like Geoph
> Kozeny that we've lost this year) and learning from their work and
> lives can fit into the national conference.
> 
> This might be a good time to remind ourselves, at our communities:
> take care of ourselves, and of each other.
> 
> Raines
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