A tribute for a colleague is always a challenge for wordsmiths. No matter how glowingly, how precisely the language is crafted, it inevitably falls short of describing the depth and dynamism of the person celebrated. Such is poignantly the case with Betsy Hilbert.In her own quiet way, Betsy was a mentor to many young scholars. More than a few years ago, she orchestrated CEA sessions (and CEA-sponsored MLA sessions) on American nature writers, inviting graduate students Scott Slovic, Ralph Black, and Michael Branch to present some of their current research. By providing them with a forum to share their burning interests, connections were made with established scholars, and ASLE (Association for the Study of Literature and Environment) soon became more than a daydream. Betsy would probably shy away from taking credit for midwifing this new life; yet her persistence in creating round-table discussions on writers such as John Burroughs, John Muir, Josephine Johnson, Mary Austin, Terry Tempest Williams, and Thomas Merton extended the conversation about American nature writers and energized a new generation of scholars.
This same passion for exploring new horizons was the impetus behind Betsy’s study of Hebrew at a Florida rabbinical school and her plan to translate the Psalms into pray-able contemporary English. Sadly, a project uncompleted.
I will miss our annual afternoon tea at CEA conventions, our private time to catch up with each other’s lives—personal and professional. And I will miss the annual nudge and support Betsy gave me to launch out into the deep with a new project or thread of research. For sure, our tea time was social, but it was also a special blessing of mutual mentoring.
Monica Weis
Betsy Hilbert was, for me, the essence of CEA: she balanced a cheerful and amiable disposition with real scholarly astuteness. Even amid the occasional hectic pace and confusion of the conference—especially the year when she presided—I found her to be even-keeled, more relaxed than most, and people-oriented. She greeted all with a smile, had time for a chat even when busy, and yet clung tenaciously to what she believed. There is now a gaping hole in the CEA roster of members; we are deeply saddened but uplifted by the sweet memories of Betsy Hilbert.
Ron Shafer
Betsy Hilbert was an incomparable friend and valued colleague of mine for over twenty years. Her enthusiasm and generosity and easy delight, which she brought equally to academia and friendships, were contagious. Her students must have loved her.When I was editing Encyclopedia of American Literature of the Sea and Great Lakes, she volunteered to do the essay on "Rachel Carson" and did it splendidly. Embarking now on the Second Vice Presidency of CEA, I hold memories of Betsy's creativity and selflessness and thoroughgoing industry in mind: her spirit is and will be my true mentor. I say of her what Nathaniel Hawthorne said of Herman Melville, "A very high and noble nature, and better worth immortality than most of us."
Jill Barnum Gidmark
A great value of Betsy's was her ability to engage strangers as though they were already friends. That's a big help at a conference of mainly strangers, where one can feel unconnected except for presenting or listening to a paper. Betsy always had a warm smile and friendly hello to everybody.
Dick Bennett
Betsy Hilbert was a writer, teacher, humanist, CEA stalwart, and dear friend to many of us.
Among her many contributions to our profession was her work in nature writing, both as a writer and as a scholar/critic. Her writing had that rare quality of a personal voice. Even in scholarly writing, Betsy's warm personality shown through. It was never the cold, sterile, overly intellectualized monotone so often affected by professional scholars. A sensitive reader always hears in Betsy's writing the voice of Betsy Hilbert herself, a real person who cares about her subject. It is a rare gift, and Betsy had it.
We will sorely miss her energy, her enthusiasm, her organizational skill, her insight into the issues of our field, and, most of all, her friendship.
Paul Bryant
About Betsy, I can say that I found her to be one of the most inclusive people that I met when I first started going to CEA. If she saw you without a place to go for dinner, she would insist that you come with her and whatever group she was going with. When she found out that I had been elected second vice president, she went out of her way to give me advice about how to organize a program. Betsy had a loyalty to CEA that we all need to emulate.
Wendell Aycock
In my years as Executive Director of CEA, I found that Betsy was absolutely as good as one gets in a genuine supporter of CEA. She gave energy, effort, creativity, scholarship, teaching savvy—the whole ball of wax, everything. What a realist. What a joy to work with. What a tribute to our profession that it has had some Betsy Hilberts in it. Our world is diminished considerably because her light has been dimmed. The glow from her life will never grow dark.
Earl Wilcox
We all caught Betsy's spirit of expertise, dedication, and enthusiasm for academe, but for me, her memory consists of a series of vignettes:
- Betsy creating an impromptu hotel-room Seder complete with a fresh orange, symbol of woman's place in the ceremony,
- Betsy immersed in comparative research with the PMLA on the best recipe for Key Lime Pie,
- Betsy curled up in a roomy chair, pondering and analyzing her life's twists and turns,
I'm blessed to have known her. Aren't we all?
- most vivid of all, Betsy at a pre-CEA-conference campout in Florida, arriving with wild horn-honking to join Jill Gidmark and me, van brimming over with supplies for every possible contingency—including a snazzy purple and aqua insulated box so cunningly engineered that the raccoons who arrived at midnight hadn't a clue how to get the (fake) lid off. We admired, ooh-ed and ah-ed her color choices and camping abilities. A month later, UPS delivered said Technicolor masterpiece to my doorstep; it's become a family tradition.
Jo C. Searles
Photo from Betsy Hilbert's resume at http://www.mdcc.edu/users/bhilbert/
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