Our founder, Dr. Joseph J. Waldmeir, Jr., died September 12 at age 89. Of course, we all knew him as Joe. And it's a poorer world without him in it.
Joe was an internationally recognized author, critic, and literary scholar. In addition to his own work, he was responsible for publishing the "Hemingway Up in Michigan Perspectives", a collection derived from papers presented during a 1991 gathering in Petoskey. It was that gathering, held at the Perry Hotel, that convinced Joe a Michigan Hemingway Society was a viable vision, and he worked with patience and perseverance, and Fred (Svoboda) and Ken (Marek) and me, until it happened.
Our first conferences were very modest affairs; we weren't yet plugged in to the Hemingway stars of the literary universe. Joe helped us do that. Our first conferees were the great unwashed, who came to learn what this Hemingway guy was all about. Joe taught us in such a charming way that we kept on coming back for the annual dose of literary enlightenment and fun we called our fall conferences. And so, over the past 25 years, we have become a respected organization on the Hemingway roster. Because Joe attracted the right kind of people, when he moved away to Iowa, we kept moving up the ladder. Although Joe couldn't be with us last year when we were selected to host the Hemingway Society's biennial conference, his fingerprints were all over the place.
I learned from his obituary in the Detroit News that he served under Patton during the Battle of the Bulge; that he was a Fulbright scholar who taught in Ireland, Finland and Denmark; that he earned his Doctorate at Michigan State University and was a professor there for four decades. That he was kicked out of high school in the 11th grade. Maybe that explains the huge openness with which he greeted anyone who showed any trace of intellectual curiosity. He is, hands down, the best teacher I have ever had, in or out of school. He never waved his CV under anyone's nose, but he was always there to discuss life and what literature had to teach us about life. And he started, not from his lofty position, but from the place occupied by the other person. No wonder one always came away from a conversation with Joe feeling so much smarter, so encouraged about untapped potential, and so eager to dig deeper.
This is not to say he was perfect; nobody is. I hate those eulogies that sanctify their subject without acknowledging the existence of a shadow. We all have a shadow, and in literature, isn't it the shadow that makes the most compelling story? Shadow and all, Joe was my friend and I miss the man. We aren't likely to see any like him soon, and I hope his family knows that we know, what a treasure has been lost with his passing.
—Audrey Collins McMullen