Jerryanne Taber BIER

On Thursday, June 27, 2013, after a life full of love and beauty, Jerryanne Taber Bier died in the peace and comfort of her home, surrounded by love on all sides. Jerryanne grew up in Delmar, N.Y., and on the shores of Lake Ontario. For the last 37 years, her home was on Whetstone Branch in Ferrum.
Jerryanne's gifts for seeing the good in all people came out in many ways. She coordinated public relations and volunteers for Franklin Memorial Hospital and the Franklin County School System, was instrumental in beginning the Franklin County Helpline, a resource for family violence prevention, and was the first Executive Director of the Franklin County Free Clinic. She served as guidance counselor at Dudley and Burnt Chimney Elementary Schools, led the Preschool Program at Ferrum College, and was a Girl Scout leader for her two youngest daughters. She worked with the Conflict Resolution Center in Roanoke for many years, training and organizing mediators and mediations, and mediating herself with workplaces, courts, schools, and families. She was also involved with several community development efforts in cooperation with Franklin County and Ferrum College, and her work was recognized with the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award this past spring.
Her passion for peace and justice led her to work with the Plowshare Peace Center in Roanoke, the Sierra Club, Grace House in Saint Paul, and relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina. She traveled to South Dakota for ten summers with Nonviolent Alternatives to live and work with the Lakota, and she journeyed with the same group to India to experience the roots of the nonviolence movement.
She worked tirelessly to protect the rural character and beauty of our region from being bisected by I-73. She was a strong supporter of the Appalachian Mountains and all who live in and love them, and if time had allowed, she would have continued to devote her energy to communities and environments threatened by the exploitation of natural resources.
She traveled across the continent several times, visiting National Parks and other areas of beauty and power: Nova Scotia, the Badlands, Bandelier and other Anasazi sites, Denali, Yosemite, and Glacier. She rode through the Bob Marshall Wilderness of Montana on horseback, and she floated over the Shenandoah Valley in a hot-air balloon. She also came to know and love this part of Virginia by driving and hiking all over Floyd, Franklin, Giles, Montgomery, and Roanoke Counties as a gypsy moth trapper. Memories of all the beautiful people and places she encountered were a strong comfort in times of uncertainty.
But even more than all of these works of compassion and adventures of beauty, Jerryanne will be remembered for her love of family and friends. As her only grandson put it, "
She has been one of the bolts that has held my life together."
She married Jim Bier on August 3, 1968, six months after meeting him, and she was his faithful partner and companion through thick and thin. Together, they had four beautiful children. Her family gave her many opportunities to practice her patience and loving-kindness, and Jerryanne moved through even the hardest times with grace and forgiveness. She passed on to all of her children a love of the land, an appreciation of beauty, and the strength of family.
Music was a source of joy and inspiration to Jerryanne, and she was a willing participant in any opportunity to make a joyful noise. She sang with the Franklin County Community Chorus for several concerts, enjoyed playing recorders with her neighbors, and was a member of the choir at church. She had a lifelong connection to horses, riding her bike five miles to the barn as a child, visiting her horse in the polo pony barn in college, and walking down morning and evening to feed and water the horses in the pasture. Jerryanne also loved her gardens-the little garden by the creek, the garden across the road, her mother's garden at Camp on Lake Ontario. In each one, she delighted to see things growing, and her favorite summer meals were entirely from the gardens: fried squash, new potatoes, green beans, sliced tomatoes. She was a wizard in the kitchen, making breads, soups, cobblers, cookies, and pies and having it all cleaned up before anyone noticed. She had such fun making birthday dinners and holiday celebrations special, enjoying every chance to celebrate living, loving, and giving.
Reluctant to constrain the Source of All into one particular tradition, Jerryanne connected with the Divine in many ways, places, and languages. She sang the Lord's Prayer in King James English and in Jesus's own Aramaic. She sat in the Buddhist tradition of mindfulness and beat on a drum in Native ceremony. She sat in a Council of All Beings and gathered with a Circle of women. She was a heartfelt participant in Dances of Universal Peace across the country, and she was an active member of Saint Peter's-in-the-Mountains in Callaway. She gained respect for Hinduism through a pilgrimage to India, the life of Gandhi, and recently watching the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. She lived the truth that all life is interconnected, and that Love is at the center of it all.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Victor and Jerry Taber of Delmar, N.Y. She is survived by her husband, Jim Bier, of Ferrum; her four children, Rebecca Stevens, of Ferrum, Jessica Bier, of Pound, Jonathan Bier, of Ferrum, and Sara Bier, of Chilhowie; five grandchildren, Asa, Ursula, and Flora of Ferrum, and Sadie and Sylvia of Chilhowie; and her brother and sister-in-law, Art and Bunny Taber of Wilmington, N.C. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Idle No More (www.idlenomore.ca), an indigenous grassroots organization working to save the human connection to the earth, and Oglala Lakota College, PO Box 537, Piya Wiconi Road, Kyle SD 57752.
A celebration of Jerryanne's life will be held at 3 p.m. on Saturday, July 6, 2013 at The Phoebe Needles Center in Callaway, VA.



This obituary was originally published in the Roanoke Times.