Isabel Wilner

WILNER , Isabel On Wednesday morning, March 16, 2011, ISABEL WILNER, died peacefully in her home in Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania. Born on February 17, 1920, Isabel spent her childhood in China and in the Philippines, where her father was an Episcopal bishop. In the Philippines she attended the Brent International School in Baguio. She came to America to attend college, and graduated from William Smith College and Carnegie Library School. The job she loved most was at Lida Lee Tall School, the Laboratory School for Towson University in Towson, MD, where she served as librarian for more than 30 years. It was there that she formed a poetry troupe to go from class to class to recite poems. For many years she traveled back and forth from Maryland to Tunkhannock, a place of strong family roots, where she eventually made her home. Isabel was an author and a storyteller. At Towson University she taught a course on Storytelling. An acclaimed author, she wrote four books for children that were published and received rave reviews: The Poetry Troupe, The Garden Alphabet, B is for Bethlehem, and The Baby's Game Book. She also published assorted poems in various magazines, including The Horn Book. Cricket, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Nation. After she retired, she continued to volunteer in schools to bring poetry to children. She also joined various writers groups, including the Dietrich Theater's Writers Group. The homage she wrote to Robert Lewis Stevenson, can be used to describe Isabel: You taught me music, made words sing, Gave me rhythm's rush and swing, Gave me words like sluice and race, And pictures of another place. In Scotland's sun, in China's shade You and I together played You with Nursie standing by, I under Amah's watchful eye, Miles apart in space and time, Companions in your world of rhyme. She was preceded in death by her mother, Alpharetta Wilner, her father Robert Franklin Wilner, her brother George, and her brother Robert.
A memorial service will be at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Tunkhannock on Saturday, March 19 at 11 AM. The Church of the Nativity in Baltimore memorial service will be held at a future date. Memorials to Isabel Wilner can be given to these churches.