Joanne (Wheeler) Whitney Obituary page

*Carleton College* *Class of '67*

Joanne (Wheeler) Whitney, member of the Carleton class of '67 and beloved wife of classmate Bill Whitney, died on November 6, 2011. Her valiant battle with cancer since 2003 included mostly good years until the end. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Bill and their family.

Gone from My Sight

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!”

“Gone where?”

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!” there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: “Here she comes!”

And that is dying.

---Henry Van Dyke


Joanne in 1963		Joanne in 2010