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The Judy R. Weinsoft Memorial
Research Library Fund
Some
years ago, Judy Weinsoft drafted her own epitaph: "She worked in
her own quiet way for a better world." For a quiet and unassuming
person, which is what she was, Judy had a tremendous impact on the American
Branch during the three years she was a member before her untimely death
in March 1994, at age 44, of breast cancer. Her generosity in establishing
an endowed library fund will assure that her impact continues.
"I
joined the Society as a lark," Judy told Portland Oregonian
reporter Fran Gardner in an interview that was published August 22,
1993. Judy spotted an article about Richard III on the front page of
the Wall Street Journal in 1991, tracked us down in the
Encyclopedia of Associations (the natural thing for a research
librarian to do), and found herself hooked. A regular patron of the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival, she tried to get them to produce Gordon
Daviot's Dickon as an antidote to Shakespeare's play during
their 1993 season; failing that, she tried to find a Society speaker
to deliver a lecture at the Festival. Finally, despite her modest and
unfounded reservations about her own abilities, she decided to deliver
the lecture herself.
The lecture, titled "Strutting and Fretting
His Hour Upon the Stage" and delivered on August 27, 1993 to
a rapt audience of over 100, was a great success. Judy's research was
thorough, her writing lively and entertaining, her insights fresh and
persuasive, and her delivery impeccable. Nothing if not thorough in
all aspects of preparation, Judy had primed friends and family to ask
the critical questions after the lecture (such as, after 500 years,
who cares?), and even designed and sold I Was Framed and
I Was Upstaged T-shirts to benefit our nonfiction library.
Surpassing herself and reaching new heights of thoroughness, Judy drove
her typist and her editor almost to despair as she strove for and almost
achieved the ultimate typo-free article in the Winter 1993/94 Ricardian
Register.
What was not obvious to many people was that Judy Weinsoft researched
and delivered her lecture while undergoing chemotherapy and while in
the early stages of the final metastasis. Those of us in the Society
who were privileged to work with her on this project continue to be
inspired by her courage, her grace, and her quiet determination to complete
the things that were most important to her. "I think that what
impressed me most about Judy -- and sticks in my mind today -- was her
total, and apparently joyful, engagement in life," writes nonfiction
librarian Helen Maurer. "Knowing she was dying, she was busy living;
she affirmed life and its possibilities with unfaltering commitment
and enthusiasm. Though I knew her all too briefly, I will remember her
graciousness, her good humor, and her warmth."
The lecture project gave a positive and revitalizing focus to some of
Judy's last months, and she credited her Ricardian involvement with
extending her period of full functionality. Because she relied heavily
on our nonfiction library in her research, and because she was a librarian
by profession, Judy chose the nonfiction library as the area in which
she wanted to pay back what only Judy would see as her debt to the Society.
(The rest of us think the shoe is on the other foot.)
The result is her lasting legacy to the vindication of Richard III:
The Judy R. Weinsoft Memorial Research Library Fund. Income from her
bequest of approximately $4,000 (and the more than $1,000 donated by
her family and friends) will be used every year to buy books and other
materials for the nonfiction library, helping the Branch to keep pace
with the explosion in fifteenth- century studies and to give members
access to the kinds of materials on Yorkist-era England found only in
major library centers.
A copy of the videotape of Judy's lecture is available for borrowing
from our audio- visual library. Her
hilarious I Was Upstaged T-shirts are available from the
Sales Office, with proceeds going
to build Judy's library fund. In Judy's obituary and at her memorial
service, the Richard III Society, American Branch was suggested for
memorial contributions. We have also gained two new Ricardians: her
husband, Phil Goldsmith, and her mother, Marcia Weinsoft..
 We hope that other Ricardians will pay tribute to the
spirit of this very thorough reference librarian who preferred to work
in a quiet way for a better world, but found the resources to be both
vocal and effective in her defense of Richard III. Memorial contributions
to the Weinsoft Library Fund may be sent to the attention of our treasurer.
Although Judy would be embarrassed and call it hyperbole, we can safely
say that Judy Weinsoft blazed across our Ricardian landscape like a
shooting star across the night sky. And like a shooting star, she is
gone before we had a chance fully to appreciate what we were about to
lose. We will continue to be dazzled by the paradox of her quiet brilliance.
And we will miss her.
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