Alice Wend

Alice Burke Wend passed away peacefully in her sleep the night of April 18 in Bozeman. Born in Walkerton, Indiana, on July 20, 1925, Alice was preceded in death by her husband David, parents Cecil and Eldon Burke, son Jerry, and grandchild Jeff. She is survived by her children Eleanor, Chris (Tammy), Henry (Sue) and grandchildren Tara, Alex, Erica, and Sam.



Alice was never happier than when she had a dining room full of kids ready to tuck into a table groaning with dairy products, meat, home baked bread, and, of course, countless desserts. Generous to a fault, Alice was also a pugnacious defender of “the kids” against what she saw as bullying adults, misguided educational professionals, and overly zealous members of the local constabulary. One friend of the Wend clan remembered, Alice was always “cheerful and smiling. She treated us like young adults when we were teen rebels.” While her children were still at home, Alice worked tirelessly shuttling her children and their friends to and from Bridger Bowl. Among the adventures shared on the literally hundreds of trips to Bridger was one perilous drive in the late 1960s on the then unpaved road. The road often became all but impassable and locals had dubbed it the “Ho Chi Minh trail.” During the drive in question, the 1956 Chevy spun a full 360 degree turn yet somehow righted itself allowing Alice to deliver her payload of kids to Bridger Bowl. Her boundless generosity led her to accept any stray, human or 4-legged, leading to a house full of dogs, cats, and kids. A visitor to the Wend house would see Alice, “always in the company of four or five dogs that followed her everywhere.” She invariably opened her house to her children’s friends, whether they be old acquaintances or brand new ones, welcoming these castaways with open arms. One such traveler recalled that David and Alice treated him “as if I was one of their children even after knowing me just a few hours.” Another family friend reminisced that Alice was “like a mother in my sometimes-stormy travels away from home, Alice’s open arms were welcomed warmth for cold bones and a sometimes-troubled heart.”



Alice was raised as a member of Church of the Brethren on “the farm” in Walkerton, Indiana located on Route 6 south of South Bend. One of her earliest memories was of the day-long church services held in a field, and the “old order” men with their long beards replete with dried juice from their chewing tobacco. As a child, her domiciles alternated between the family farm and her father’s various teaching posts. The family lived in Chicago in the early 1930s, and Alice remembered getting lost one day only to be returned home by an Irish policeman who lifted her up and carried her across 31st street to her family apartment. She attended the Dewey-inspired Ball State Laboratory School in Muncie, Indiana, graduating in 1941. During the Second World War, she matriculated at Radcliffe College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, graduating with a degree in English in 1947. An Indiana farm girl at an elite educational institution, “Burkie” made enduring friendships with a remarkable circle of women, including her lifelong chum, Barbara Stanton (nee Rosenberg). During this time, she spent summers aiding her parents whose church service work included running a hostel for displaced Japanese-Americans in Brooklyn, New York. After the war, she followed her father to occupied war-torn Germany, where he worked delivering American voluntary relief. There she made another lifelong friend, the daughter of the head of Lutheran Relief in Bremen, Brigitte Lauth (nee Heyne). After returning from Germany, Alice attended the University of Michigan, earning a Master’s Degree in Library Science in 1953. It was here that she encountered her partner in crime for the next 63 years, David V.V. Wend. They met at the Outing Club and were married in 1953. A scholar in her own right, Alice helped to manage the art history collection at the University of Utah library and served as editor-in-chief for David’s various textbook projects with Wadsworth Publishing.



Alice’s next decades were involved with raising her children. Daughter Eleanor was born in Ames, Iowa. Following a move to Salt Lake City in 1955, three children followed: Jerry, who tragically died at age two due to heart failure, and sons Chris and Henry. During this time, she and her husband enjoyed the American West with their family. In fact, camping adventures provided much grist for the Wend family memory mill, from energetic toddler Chris’s dangerous ambulation perilously close to the rim at the Grand Canyon, to Alice’s memorable confrontation, armed only with a “feeble flashlight,” with a rummaging bear in a campsite on the western shore of Vancouver Island. In 1966, the family moved to Bozeman, where husband David took up a post teaching Mathematics at Montana State University. Alice loved the quaintness of old Montana, especially Pony, the drive over Trail Creek, and the tiny parish of St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Livingston. She always went out of her way to patronize local businesses, be it Egberts Shoes, Heebs and the Country Bookshelf. In 1968, she prevailed upon her husband to invest in some land near the mouth of Hyalite Canyon. “The Land” became the focus for family activities, cookouts, irrigating and haying, as well as a place for the kids to camp, explore, and recreate.



In the 1990s, Alice and David returned to Indiana to help with the care of her father, taking up residence in the family house in North Manchester, Indiana. This enabled Alice and David to be nearer to friends and family. For the next decade, they divided their time between Bozeman and North Manchester, embarking on biannual 1600 mile drives across the intervening states. In 2006, they returned for good to Bozeman, to the house at 18 West Harrison. In her later years, Alice loved nothing better than a mystery novel, listening to NPR, working on the crossword puzzle with her husband, conversing with the multiple people who worked in the house, and eating good food. In fact, she once refused staying at the hospital after a fall, telling the doctor “Why should I stay. I’ve been here all morning, and you haven’t even offered me something to eat.” Only after the doctor went to the hospital cafe and returned with a sandwich, would she allow herself to be admitted. Alice was an independent spirit to the end. She resisted all efforts to get her to enter a retirement community and remained in her own home, where she passed peacefully into the next life.



A memorial for Alice Wend will be held on August 5, 2017 at 11 AM in St. James Episcopal Church in Bozeman.