Jocelyn Vollmar

Jocelyn...Always warm, always welcoming. We miss you!

I was named Jocelyn, for Jocelyn Vollmar, by my mother in January 1955, in the hopes that I too would become a dancer. I actually studied at the San Francisco Ballet School in the late 60s and would see her occasionally in the dressing rooms. I was way too shy to approach her. Unfortunately a serious injury ended my (and my mother's), hope of my being a professional dancer. She was truly someone special to look up to and I'm so proud to have her name.

Never met this relative, but she lives on in the loving stories I have heard of her remarkable life. Sympathies to all.

I was a scholorship student the summers of '67 and '68 , and Jocelyn was San Francisco ballet's Prima Ballarina those yrs.It would always amaze me that she would get dressed and ready for class with all of us in the ladies dressing room with no star attitude, and seemed to enjoy some conversation from us. I was impressed and in awe to be around such a talent , and I will always think of her as being the first celebrity of many in my life as a pro dancer and entertainer .

How lucky we were to cross paths with Jocelyn!
Our friendship lasted 50 years, although most of it was spent far apart - with an occasional visit in San Francisco.
She changed our lives in 1968, on our way to Alaska and then back to Finland.
We stopped to take classes at SFB and Jocelyn asked us to stay a few more days to meet Lew Christensen.
We agreed to stay a year in America - and now 50 years later we are still here!
We will miss her beautiful smile and outlook...

It was an honor and privilege to have known Jocelyn. She was so thin and frail and yet amazingly strong. I met her at San Francisco Ballet's Alumni Memoir Project and then worked with Jeff Friedman and Mary Wood to further preserve her legacy via an oral history project, "Dance Icons of the West."

I've read and re-read her life story many times, and while it is filled with stories of exotic people and places and tremendous accomplishment, it is also filled with will, energy,...

A great lady and a kind, inspiring teacher. Jocelyn Vollmar will be missed indeed.