Beryl Kathleen Wilson

Beryl Kathleen Wilson

Feb. 5, 1925

May 7, 2004

Mom was born and raised in Newcastle, Australia, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1946 as the new bride of Harold J. Wilson. They had met while Dad was stationed there with the U.S. Navy. The prettiest of the Heaney girls left her home behind to cross the Pacific with that blue-eyed Arkansas boy, which was a bold venture at the time. They spent the next fifty-five years together, creating five children and a treasure of life that was well beyond a mere oceans horizon.

Our home had a huge cut stone fireplace that was both rough and smooth at the same time, of traditional design but constructed in contemporary style. It was immensely strong but with foundation and flexibility to have weathered countless storms and at least a couple good earthquakes. We learned as kids that youd burn yourself if you were foolish around it, and it was much harder than your own head if you bumped against it. Yet it was the best warmth imaginable when it was cold everywhere else, and monolithic in its reliability. If you felt you didnt need it for a season or two, it still stood and was just as welcoming as when you last warmed yourself at its hearth. It was there when you woke up and went to sleep; it was the center of our home.

And certainly such was Mom. She is survived by her children Zahidi, Joyce, Joan, John and Joe; sons-in-law John Neale and Jim Fletcher; daughters-in-law Kathy Wilson and Lenore Wilson; ten grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren; and innumerable friends from New South Wales to the Ozarks. She was preceded in passing by her husband Harold in 2001. Her family will honor her memory at a private gathering.