Scottish Rite Temple
March 31, 2023
3:00
MEMORIAL PERSONAE: MOLLIE’S COHORT
MY THREE SONS
ARTIST SON ONE Nick
CO-SON Christian
ARTIST SON TWO Spencer
STRUEVER NEICE Sally
TOLL SISTER Lois
CO-BOTANIST BOTANICAL CO-SCIENTIST MOLLIENANNE Anne Cully
CI-WORKER PAM McBride
CO-TEACHER MARY Howard
COLLEAGUE ARCHAEOLGIST “BOSS” ERIC Blinman
TOLL NEICE: TOM FERIL “TIME OF MOUNTAINS” KATE Toll
CO-PARENT HUSBAND FRIEND COLLEAGUE CO-OWNER LOVER WOLKY
CO-EDUCATOR SPIRITUAL GUIDE Mary Weahkee
Tom Feril was poet laureate of Colorado and a close friend of our grandfather’s and father’s. We have heard his poem at a number of events like this one. Kate Toll Mollie and my niece has agreed to read it for us.
TIME OF MOUNTAINS
Read by KATE TOLL
WOLKY'S TRIBUTE
Thank you, Tom Ferill. Tom and we thank Kate for her clear reading. I think of many of Tom’s poems as Native prayers, though Tom didn’t speak Tewa or Comanche
Let’s revel in this assembly of people in this Alhambra of a space. We represent many of the people, places and concepts that Mollie touched and effected and affected. It’s a detailed stratigraphic profile of the layers of her projects and how they relate to each other. We are a graphic model of the neural network that Mollie has created. Nerves are a good model because they cause action when they reach their destination.
We are proud and grateful to be in that sample.
How did Mollie build these networks? Habitual, perpetual thought of others and how to do things for them how to make them happy and feel supported, as well as challenged. I’ve been struggling for or the right adjective for this. I’ve heard her brother say considerate-est perhaps a questionable form but an attempt—please provide your own.
We personally thank past and present people of Chaco for so many reasons. Serendipity helped but they brought us together and our colleagues there remain among our closest friends, including Marcia who made the beautiful urn for Mollie.
Chaco is an ethereal place and group to start and build our own stratigraphy and network, system.
Mollie-style, we keep trying to make lists of those networks and effects we share in. Here’s today’s sample list
Whether it’s the coolest ethnobiology meeting ever in Oaxaca organized with Alejandro de Avila or the Southwest Symposium session just 10 weeks ago in Santa Fe with Ann Stodder
Or the classrooms where she took her beloved Gallo Pithouse to help K to 12 archaeologists and their teachers to think about what people did and thought about hundreds of years ago on that pithouse floor based on what was found there.
It’s Schools in Hobbes or Clovis or Portales or Albuquerque, or Silver City or Cañoncito or Tohajillee to Santa Fe or Dulce or Farmington.
Or school gardens and Harvest Festivals and star parties at Salazar or Gonzales Schools
Or, as Pam says, many archaeobotanical reports representing astronomical numbers of seeds each accompanied with almost equal numbers of notes and lists, tables and careful interpretation. The San Juan Basin Archaic, or Fresnel Shelter or the Rio Puerco or Lake Powell Inundation study--or formerly inundated: Mollie’s professional networks
Or the work she did in Portales with Vorsilla Bohrer’s library and estate or as Cynthia Irwin- Williams’ assistant
Or all those reports –and thesis--in Chaco Canyon. The La Plata Valley where many of us have worked and appreciated.
Or pueblo or school or city libraries from the Southside of Santa Fe to the Main book sales and distributions on to Blue Hill, Maine
Or the Amigos at Los Luceros and its history, people, animals and Rio.
The work crews in Tolland restoring and making beautiful and useful 100 year-old buildings
And of course, the family near and far she so minutely and assiduously LOVED AND CARED FOR ALWAYS.
THERE. ANOTHER LIST:
ANOTHER SAMPLE
MORE NEURAL NETWORKS
We’ve walked a long time on the floor of a river, but not long enough.
During the last 46 years or so that just flashed by, Mollie and I argued and disagreed about very little. There were of course little disagreements but mostly of the Bill Gillespie “you’re not going to do it that way are you?” variety.
There is, however, a lingering disagreement: Mollie had a habit of minimizing the impacts she had: hiding her light under a basket, reluctant to take the credit she so deserved or even have her picture taken (though you will see some beauties on the website).
We are doing a good job here to in support of many of our positions to dispel that tendency. I propose a resolution that we let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
In short:
MOLLIELUJAH, MOLLIELUJAH, MOLLIELUJAH
Or as my cousin Katharyn would have it among the spring flowers in Plymouth: Mollieblueja, Mollieblueja, Mollieblueja
Mary Weakee Motah is an international educator and force of nature.
Mollie and Mary have worked on much educational outreach. Knowing the personalities, it is interesting that Mollie has been Mary’s “supervisor” for a few years at OAS, as though May could be supervised. I flatter myself to be part of Team M-W: Mary Weahkee, Mollie Wolky. No, Nick, it’s not Meow Wolf.
Drawing on her Comanche and Tewa roots Mary has taught us about materials and manufacture: Yucca sandals, rabbit fur blankets, turkey feather, blankets. She knows about stone tools, butchering an occasional bison
Mary has the essential Educator attribute: she’s a ton of FUN to be around
At the same time, Mary is deeply spiritual
Mollie and I belong to a particular cohort: ARCHAEOLOGISTS BORN IN 1949 OR CLOSE. It has been a hard, hard year for our cohort. Since this is a memorial we need to remember the people, friends and colleagues in the cohort who died this year. I know that Mollie would earnestly want to share with them:
Pablo Williams another ton of fun to be around who Mary worked with on petroglyphs and trails
Susan Moga whose bright light illuminated so many OAS projects--some of which needed that light--who worked with Mary in the field and lab. In February last year Mollie was helping organize a memorial for Susan.
Reg Wiseman our purposely curmudgeonly but love-able expert on southeast New Mexico
And now MOLLIE
MARY HAS HELPED US…AND THESE DECEDENT FRIENDS… THROUGH THIS HARD, HARD YEAR
Mary has made a special effort to be here to close this MOLLIELUJAH CHORUS. When she has finished
Please Come to the BALLROOM share further about Mollie and have some of Hugo’s food and Emily’s drink.
And Please Go to Nick and Sally’s beautiful Website and add further to Mollie Memories: MOLLIETOLL.WIX.COM/MOLLIE
MARY and GRANDCHILDREN: COMANCHE SONG
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